Aria Bolkus on her dad’s death, Labor legacy, and turning Colton red
Last week, Aria Bolkus farewelled her father and Labor stalwart Nick Bolkus at a state funeral amid campaigning to win the beachside seat of Colton. InDaily spoke exclusively to Aria about her father’s passing.
Nick Bolkus died peacefully on Christmas morning, aged 75. He was a South Australian senator from 1980 to 2005 and the first Greek-Australian cabinet minister under former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.
But to 29-year-old Aria Bolkus, Labor’s candidate for Colton, he was just dad.
“Whenever dad needed something in the nursing home, he called me for everything, everything he thought was wrong, everything he needed fixed. It was ‘Aria’,” she told InDaily over an iced latte at Joe’s Henley Beach.
“All of my resources and energy for the last six and a half years have gone into helping him.”
Her father was farewelled at a state memorial service at Adelaide University on January 22, with attendees including the Premier and Federal Health Minister Mark Butler, who Aria worked for while her dad was unwell.
“I said to someone, I didn’t realise the impact dad had…It’s been remarkable for me to have learnt it. I wish, as an adult person, I could have had an adult relationship with dad.”
Aria was 23 when her father suffered a stroke. When she was preselected to run for Colton, the safe Liberal seat held by retiring member Matt Cowdrey, Nick Bolkus’ neurodegenerative Parkinson’s Disease “was starting to take a toll”.
“He recognised what was happening and was proud of me in doing it, but wasn’t really able to provide any substantial advice other than looking visibly happy about me doing it, and also saying that out of all his kids, he had anticipated I would do that the least,” Aria says with a smile.
Aria is a qualified lawyer and always thought that was how she would make change. But she shifted gears when her dad became unwell, working as an advisor for Federal Health Minister Mark Butler on policy ranging from a diabetes inquiry to aged care reform.
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Though concerned about her age and looking younger than 29, Aria is confident she can win the seat and was prepared to compete against Paralympian Cowdrey before he announced his retirement.
“Not many people at the age of 29 can say they’ve spent six and a half years navigating the aged care system, and as unfortunate as it is, it also is the reality that I have had to do something a lot younger than what most people do,” Aria says about caring for her father.
Despite her dad’s legacy as a long-time Labor party stalwart, Aria does not consider herself a political nepo baby.
“I have worked so incredibly hard and people ask me this all the time,” she says.
“The reality is that every second of my day that I haven’t been working, I’ve been caring for dad, and while I have had connections with people like Mark [Butler], the ultimate reality was that dad left politics [when I was] such a young age, and then he got unwell.
“I did not think about that at all at the time. I just thought about what I could do for dad.”
Aria has no illusions about politics being glamorous, and both parents taught her hard work and the value of community – something she learnt at our interview spot at Joe’s cafe overlooking Henley Beach, where she worked as a teenager.
“I lived down the road, and dad sent me down as soon as I could get my first job, Joe’s was one place that I could walk to, and I think he knew that Joe was a tough operator, so I’d learn a couple of things about what it was like to have a tough boss at a very young age,” she laughs.
These days, she opts for a latte (hot or iced, depending on the weather) and a smashed avo. But when she was young, Aria couldn’t pass up a Milo ice cream or a chocolate paddle pop before jumping off the steps onto the sand with her friends.
“Dad was so embedded, one of the things I’ve noticed, and mum and my sister and me, all of us individually… we’ve all been very embedded in this community,” she said.
“It’s a community that we love, and that’s ultimately the reason I said yes to do this, and people know us, but it’s because this is home for us.”
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From her mum, Mary, Bolkus said she’s learnt how to advocate for people.
“She’s also taught me to just get on with it,” Aria said.
She’s been getting on with it by fielding resident questions about beach health, particularly sand replenishment, which became a feature of the election campaign on the weekend.
On Saturday, Aria stood alongside Environment Minister Lucy Hood and Deputy Premier Kyam Maher as they promised a new sand replenishment program that would restore West Beach with 400,000 cubic metres of sand collected from the Outer Harbour channel breakwater.
The former Liberal government had already approved a pipeline to tackle the local issue but the project was shelved for new community consultation when the Labor Party was elected.
“We are taking trucks off our beaches in a long-term solution for the community, because we know how much locals love their coastline,” Hood said.
The state government committed to establishing an annual replenishment program of 90,000 cubic metres of sand collected from sites where sand builds up – like Semaphore and Largs Bay –and would cost $190 million over 20 years.
This type of dredging was a recommendation of the 2023 Adelaide Beach Management Review and was proven by a dredging trial, the state government said.
The Liberal Party announced a pledge of its own, with leader Ashton Hurn saying it would provide a permanent pipeline to pump sand from beaches further along the coastline to the area if elected, the local community having long protested the state government’s solution of trucking sand.
“People are tired of Labor’s band-aid plans – they want something that works long-term and lets them actually enjoy their beaches again,” Hurn said.
The Liberal Party cost its plan at $140 million over 20 years, with Bolkus’ opponent for Colton, Bec Sutton, saying she was “gobsmacked” by Labor’s plan.
“I have spoken with many locals who are strongly opposed to dredging, which has the potential to damage the sea-bed,” Sutton said.
“It takes away from the natural beauty of the coastline and has an impact on residents, tourists and local businesses.”
Bolkus will face Sutton at the state election in March.
