Southern Courier’s top 20 influential: The top five
We’ve been counting down our top 20 most influential all week. Today we bring you our top five and reveal our most influential person for 2018.
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- Most influential list: Numbers 20 to 16
- Most influential list: Numbers 15 to 11
- Most influential list: Numbers 10 to 6
HERE it is, the one you’ve all been waiting for.
Today we reveal our top five most influential men and women in the Southern Courier area in 2018.
We gave numbers 20 to 16 in Tuesday’s paper and online.
On Wednesday we published numbers 15 to 11 online before we revealed 10 to 6 on Thursday.
To recap we’ve had disgraced cricketer David Warner, TV superstar Dr Chris Brown, nurse Merrilyn Lambert, pub king Justin Hemmes and multi-millionaire developer Iwan Sunito.
Runner and charity extraordinaire Sophie Smith was next followed by legendary lifesaver Doug Hawkins.
Waratahs CEO Doug Hawkins was No. 13 followed by Bayside Mayor Bill Saravinovski and Rabbitohs chairman Nick Pappas.
Into the top 10 and we had Randwick Mayor Lindsay Shurey followed by Sydney Airport boss Geoff Culbert, Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation stalwart Lulu Zalapa, Australian of the Year Michelle Simmons and Port Botany CEO Marika Calfas.
So here it is, our final five.
As always don’t forget to let us know what you think of our choices. Email editor@southerncourier.com.au
5 Hugh Bowman
When it comes to the biggest names in racing, you can’t get much bigger than jockey Hugh Bowman.
Named the Longines World’s Best Jockey in 2017, Bowman is the first Australian to win the title.
The South Coogee resident has been Australia’s leading Group 1 jockey for five seasons in a row. Clearly his partnership with champion thoroughbred Winx has sent his career into orbit.
Bowman is recognised on the international stage and rides regularly in Hong Kong and Japan.
He has ridden Winx in 26 of her staggering 29 career wins. He is a logical, intelligent man who is highly respected in the racing industry. He was apprenticed at Royal Randwick, moving to Sydney from Dubbo in 1999, where he still does his trackwork. He brings people through the gates at Randwick and there’s no better advertisement for the sport of racing than Bowman.
4 Sam Burgess
For a man born 16,000km away to make No. 4 on our list, is an amazing achievement given he has only been in Sydney for eight years.
The 29-year-old, one of one of four rugby league playing brothers, is fast becoming one of the game’s all-time greats. But his skill on the field is only half the story.
He has bought into the community ethos of the Bunnies and is never shy in lending his support to charities and other good causes.
He has been front and centre at numerous school visits (even if the kids can’t understand his Yorkshire drawl) and always makes time for the fans.
He gets fans through the gate, sells shirts and when he’s got the ball in hand you can’t help but watch. We’re proud to call him one of ours.
3 Ita Buttrose
She didn’t just break the glass ceiling for female journalists, she shattered it.
In the then male-dominated world of Australian publishing, Ita became founding editor of Cleo magazine in 1972 and in 1975 was appointed the youngest editor of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
She was the first woman to edit a major metropolitan newspaper in Australia as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, and the first woman director of News Limited. Now a businesswoman, author and philanthropist, the former Studio 10 host is the national ambassador of Alzheimer’s Australia, patron of the Macular Degeneration Foundation and emeritus director of Arthritis Australia to name just a few of the charities she supports.
The 2013 Australian of the Year is a Centennial Park resident and spends plenty of time at her much-loved local park.
Ita is also a Centennial Park and Moore Park trustee and Centennial Parklands Foundation ambassador.
2 Harry Triguboff
Nobody else on this list has shaped the area in which we live quite like the second richest man in Australia, Meriton managing director Harry Triguboff.
The self-professed unit king has transformed the likes of Mascot and now Pagewood beyond recognition.
And despite his advancing years — he turned 85 earlier this year — the billionaire and son of Russian Jewish migrants is not finished yet.
In March the former taxi fleet and milk round owner told the Courier he has plans for Little Bay and Mascot and his offer to help pay for the light rail to be extended to his Pagewood Green estate is still on the table.
To some his property developments are a blight on the landscape. To others he is providing the quantity of homes this city desperately needs.
1 Maria Atkinson
Here it is, the one you’ve all been waiting for. Our most influential person in 2018 is the Eastern City Commissioner Maria Atkinson.
Many of you will have heard of her but some may not, so here’s some background.
Lucy Turnbull — the Prime Minister’s wife — set up the Greater Sydney Commission to plan the future growth of metropolitan Sydney.
The commission envisages a Sydney made up of three metropolitan centres: the western city, central city (around Paramatta) and the eastern city.
Each region has been appointed a commissioner with Ms Atkinson chosen for the east.
Just last month it was announced the commission now reports directly to Premier Gladys Berejiklian. As reported in the Southern Courier last month, councils are also being told (and financially rewarded) to heed their plans.
So what is Ms Atkinson’s plan for the future?
Inevitably it is going to mean more housing. In the next four years alone Bayside will have to find room for 10,150 homes while Randwick will have to accommodate 2250.
Over the next 18 years the southeast will somehow have to house an additional 340,000 residents.
Transport is also high on her list of priorities and she has called for the construction of a heavy rail line from the CBD via Green Square and Mascot to Randwick, Maroubra Junction and onwards to Malabar.
She wanted industrial areas around Botany to be protected, for schools to share buildings with private companies in a bid to accommodate the expected population boom and for some of our golf courses to be turned into parks and for sports fields to built in shopping malls.
For those who haven’t come across her, she is a force of nature.
Whatever you think of her opinions, she is refreshingly honest, straight forward and certainly doesn’t beat around the bush.
She’s not thinking of next year, not even of five years’ time. She is planning for 2040 and beyond. This city faces huge pressures in the next few decades and we could do worse than having her at the helm.
See the rest of the list:
Most influential list: Numbers 20 to 16