You don't meet very many Australian politicians who can speak Thai, but Philip Dalidakis, the minister for small business, innovation and trade with the Australian state of Victoria, has a lifelong connection with Thailand. It started two decades ago when he came to the northeastern province of Udon Thani as an exchange student in 1994.
The experience motivated him to continue studying the Thai language when he moved back to his native Melbourne. Back then, he was still playing football too but he met the same fate as many university footballers: an injury that landed him in the operating room.
"I did my knee in when I was playing for Monash (University) and pulled my medial ligament. Within one year, I think I put on 12 kilos," he tells Asia Focus, recalling the effect of inactivity after his recovery.
Mr Dalidakis at the time was completing his studies, which included a master's degree in Commerce and double degree in Business and Arts with a focus on politics and Thai language. Why Thai? He wanted to be able to speak another language besides English and Greek, he explains.
Photo: Tawatchai Kemgumnerd
His father was born in Greece and his mother was originally from Shanghai, the daughter of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, so an international outlook has always come naturally.
Explaining his earlier decision to study in Thailand he says: "It was very simple because I wanted to study an Asian language and the countries I had to choose from at the time were Indonesia, Thailand and Japan.
"I have an older sister, four and a half years older, and she had studied Bahasa and lived in Indonesia for three months, and I had a friend who was studying in Japan but no one I knew had been in Thailand, so for me, it was the great unknown."
Udon Thani then became his first choice. As someone born and raised in Melbourne, Mr Dalidakis was trying to avoid living in another major city, so Bangkok was out of the question.
"I come from a major city so if I wanted to have a real experience, then I would have to take myself somewhere where I hadn't been before. The choice between Bangkok and Udon was given to me by the Rotary Club," he explains.
"From my perspective, if I wanted to come and have an experience overseas, I wanted to have a real experience, and if I lived in Bangkok, I was worried that I would not have the same experience, the ability to immerse myself the way I did in Udon."
MARKETING MELBOURNE
Mr Dalidakis is typical of many Victorians who have strong ties to Thailand through business, tourism and family. Because the kingdom left a big impression on his teenage life, he is now working to drive more trade between Victoria and Thailand and to encourage more Thai students to choose the capital city Melbourne when they look to study abroad.
"I'm a first-generation Australian, so to travel to see all my family means that I always have to leave Australia. I guess travelling has always been a part of my life growing up," he notes. "My first overseas trip was when I was 10 years old and we went back to Greece to see my father's family. The adventure, the experience was exciting and it was a chance to challenge myself as well," he says, explaining that this also motivated him to study abroad.
Victoria and Thailand have a healthy trading relationship with two-way trade worth US$4.4 billion in the 2016 fiscal year. The Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement (Tafta) has helped drive that growth with the reduction of import duties on many fresh produce items, while thousands of Victorians visit Thailand's irresistible beaches every year.
The 21 flights between Melbourne and Thailand each week are a perfect testament to the close ties between Australia's most densely populated state and the kingdom. It is no wonder that more and more Thai students are also going to Victoria to take advantage of the state's vocational training facilities and universities.
Since 2012 the number of Thai students enrolled in Victorian educational institutions has leapt by about 70% to 7,000, with many of them studying the English language.
Melbourne hosts most of these international students and Study Melbourne has just launched a new welcome campaign called "There's a Place for You in Melbourne". The aim is to expand the state's multi-billion-dollar international education sector.
More than 175,000 students from 160 countries are studying in Victoria, making international education the state's largest service-based export worth $7.1 billion and employing more than 30,000 people.
CHANCE TO SERVE
With a master's degree in commerce, Mr Dalidakis has worked in both the private sector and in government. His early career included positions as an analyst with Deloitte, a senior property accountant with Centro Properties Group, and a financial controller with Boston Umbrella.
He was also chief executive officer of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries from 2007-11, and was deputy chief of staff at the Ministry for Broadband in 2011-12. From 2012-14 he decided to run his own business, SCG Advisory, before he was appointed to his current position in July 2015. But why did he come back to politics?
"For me it is a form of community service, to be able to influence government policy, to be able to have positive input into decisions that will have a long-lasting impact," he replies. "I have always been interested in community engagement and current affairs.
"I had not always thought I would have a career [in politics] or become a member of parliament and a minister, but it was always an interest and in the back of my mind. Doing political subjects [at university] was nurturing or feeding that interest."
Mr Dalidakis believes a management degree helps, but the key to success in political endeavours is common sense when it comes to treating people with respect, supporting and encouraging them. He enjoys the challenge of politics and striving to come up with original ideas and solutions. What you do and how you do things are closely scrutinised, as are the decisions that you make, and of course you don't always get the decisions right. But he perseveres.
"I am inspired by the businesspeople I meet and the people who give every day and try to create value, to build a better life for themselves," he says. "If I can, in a small way, support them to turn their dreams into reality, that I find really, really inspiring."
His role model is Paul Keating, who was the 24th prime minister of Australia and led the Labor Party from 1991-96. Mr Keating was also an outspoken advocate of a much larger Australian role in Asia and an influential figure in the formation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.
"He was a big influence for me," says Mr Dalidakis. "He understood that Australia's future lay in a much stronger relationship in Asia than what we had before, and he had always talked about Asian engagement, such as more connections with Indonesia and the creation of Apec."
Greater cooperation between Australia and Asia has been a key goal of Mr Dalidakis going back to his time in Thailand in 1994, and in his current position he has an opportunity to act on those beliefs.
NURTURING TRADE
With the Asean-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement in place since 2010, he is optimistic that trade between Australia and the 10-country Southeast Asian bloc will continue to thrive, but he cautions that trade agreements are only part of the story.
"Governments still have to work together and we see this in the Australia-Thai FTA. Tariffs will be removed in 2020 of course, but what we are seeing is that some companies are waiting before they start investing in the relationship," he points out.
"So what we need to do, as a government, is to create an environment where companies do not wait, that they work starting from now on the relationship because I think it is important that we take advantage of the lowering of tariff barriers, which are much lower than what they were five years ago."
For example, most people in Melbourne have fish sauce and jasmine rice in their kitchens and there is still a huge opportunity for more Thai exports to go to Australia. The biggest tariff barrier between Asean and Australia right now is on beef, which is subject to quotas and thus affects the strategy of Australian processors.
"With the tariffs in place, on Jan 1 [each year], companies buy all the meat to meet the quota for fresh beef and then they freeze it, which kills the benefit of buying fresh beef which is the quality," says Mr Dalidakis.
"If you freeze [beef], you will lose some of that quality. But come 2020, when the tariff quota is removed, it will enable companies not to rush to get quotas before the tariff increases again."
Victoria carefully tends its international profile through the second largest number of trading and investment offices around the world, behind only the federal agency Austrade, with a presence in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, five in mainland China, plus Bangalore and Mumbai in India, to name a few.
Mr Dalidakis says the reason for all the offices is that the world is a smaller place today than it has ever been, and for the state to be able to support its businesses it needs to help them to reach new markets.
"Trade always goes two ways and what we have to do is to build the friendship, the mutual understanding and the respect," he says. "What we have with Australia and Thailand is unique in Asia because that relationship has existed for many decades.
"It's not a relationship that we have to build from the bottom up but what we now need to do is work on that relationship and build confidence between businesses."
Other opportunities in Asean for Australian businesses are the growing economy in Vietnam and the opening up of Myanmar. Mr Dalidakis met recently with the vice-minister of education in Myanmar to propose an initiative to help the country with international education and vocational training.
"Only a small percentage of students come from families that can afford to send their children overseas, so we want to bring some of our skills and training courses, the integrity of the courses and structure and to help teach the teachers in Myanmar," he says.
Melbourne Polytechnic, one of Victoria's top vocational training institutions, has already signed an agreement with the Panyapiwat Institute of Management, the largest training provider in Thailand with 16,000 students, which will be the next step in bringing Australian education to Thai students.
As son of immigrant parents, former international student and avid traveller, Mr Dalidakis truly understands what life is like when one is away from home. Now living in Bentleigh with his wife Debra and three young children, who attend local state schools, most of his travel these days is on public business and there is less time for leisure trips.
However, he is content with the life of public service because he gets to help companies spread their wings, and he loves his new role promoting Victoria's international education scene which he hold close to his heart.
"Everything that we do is always brought back to the community and I love the fact that I am part of helping to serve my community," he concludes.
