The richest Greek in Australia is Kostas Makris, the former owner of the Greek football club Panachaiki, with 900 million dollars. Over the previous years, Makris was the only Greek-Australian billionaire.

Makris and his son Ross are the biggest real estate owners in South Australia. Furthermore, he recently bought the Marina Mirage on  Queensland’s Gold Coast.

The businessman emigrated to Australia in 1963.  In the beginning he worked in the foundries, then bought a chain of Fast Food restaurants and then he switched to the real estate sector. He bought the first shopping center with the proceeds from the sale of the Fast Food restaurants in the 1980’s.

Today he owns many shopping centers, the Optus House in Adelaide and the Bonnyridge Plaza on the outskirts of Sydney, while he also has businesses in Greece , where he often enjoys the sea with his expensive yacht, Ouzo Palace.

Ross Makris started cooperating with his father in 1987 and founded the company Precision Investment Corporation in 1995, as his own investment vehicle. His first property was a shopping center he acquired by his father. He continues to work with his father in the headquarters of their company, but they maintain separate businesses. Their plan for the time being is the development of their shopping shops, in order to increase their useful floor space. In the future they will turn to other states.

In the second place, from the Greek side, is Kerry Harmanis with 590 million dollars. Harmanis has advice for those who want to succeed. “To spend at least ten minutes every day for…quiet personal meditation.”

In the 3rd place is Theodore Karedis, who has Theo’s Liquor chain of liquor stores and whose fortune amounts to 490 million dollars. He has also made many investments in the real estate sector.

Then follows the Stamoulis family, founded by Spyros Stamoulis. Today the company’s head is his son Harris Stamoulis. The fortune amounts to 480 million dollars.

In the fifth place is Nick Politis, with 360 million dollars.

In the sixth place of richest Greek-Australians is George Koukis with a fortune of 320 million dollars. Koukis, who was born in Chalkis and grew up in Australia, is the owner of a technological company based in Switzerland. He is a main shareholder of the company Temenos, which is listed in the Zurich stock exchange and according to the prestigious financial magazine Bilanz, George Koukis is the fifth richest Greek in Switzerland.

In the seventh place, is Melbourne’s travel agent from Kefalonia, Spyros Alysandratos, with 285 million dollars.

The list does not include the Paspalis family, who was second last year, with a fortune amounting to 900 million dollars.

In the first place remains Gina Rinehart, the world’s richest woman, despite the fact that last year she saw her fortune reduce by one-third due to the crisis in the Australian mining industry. Although she lost 7 billion dollars, Rinehart remains the richest woman in Australia with a fortune of 22 billion dollars.

In the second place of the 200 richest Australians is Frank Lowy with 6,87 billion dollars and in the third place is James Parker with 6 billion dollars.

The Premier of Queensland, Campbell Newman, served the guests donuts, while former Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, was shown how to make Greek souvlaki.

It is a festival that combines Greek with Australian culture and traditions and managed to be integrated within the wider Australian community.

The Greek Club, with the entertainment space, the Greek school, the Community’s offices and the beautiful temple of St. George, is located just opposite the famous Musgrave Park. There, the Greek Fest took place with a variety of culinary flavors from Cyprus, Crete and other regions of Greece.

In the presence of many Australians, the Greek Club also hosted lectures by academics and slide show films of Ancient Greece and the Parthenon sculptures, along with exhibits of traditional costumes and photographs, with information in English relating to Asia Minor and Istanbul, cooking demonstrations and Greek product exhibitions.

Many Australian TV stars attended the event as well to admire several dance groups that filled the air with Greek folk music and traditional dancing.

Reporter Evan Williams said, “The rise of Golden Dawn, a party which openly supports anti-Semitism and racism and is associated with violent attacks against immigrants, demonstrates the tragic consequences of the economic enslavement of a once proud people.”

In the beginning of the broadcast, Dateline referred to Golden Dawn’s actions to gain public support, such as the “only for Greeks” free food distribution, where people have to show their ID to prove they are Greek.  The party also offers its assistance to citizens that call for help to deal with a petty theft or an attack, or other incidents that have to do with immigrants. Golden Dawn organizes blood donations also “for Greeks only” and  raids in outdoor street markets and hospitals to detect illegal immigrants in order to lead them to deportation.”

Golden Dawn deputy commander, Ilias Panagiotaros told Dateline: “Golden Dawn aspires to emerge as the corresponding in Greece of Hezbollah of Lebanon and as a second government for the benefit of Greek citizens.” “The party’s actions come to fill significant shortfalls due to the general collapse of all institutions in Greece.”

Reporter Evan Williams stressed that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has observer in Greece ” who recorded the sharp increase in violent attacks on immigrants, illegal or not, with an increasing intensity and severity of injuries resulting in some cases even to death, while fear is systematically cultivated “.

The reasons for Golden Dawn’s rise are investigated along with its growing  popularity among Greek citizens. “The inadequacy and failure of the political parties in Greece and the economic impoverishment are the main factors that led to intense feelings of rage, disappointment  and revenge towards the political system as well as wish of alternative solutions, especially for the young people, who have no hope for the future,” Panagiotaros said.

Immigrants say they are targeted by Golden Dawn as easy scapegoats for the economic crisis. Panagiotaros told Dateline: “The life of the Greeks has changed drastically. More than two million illegal immigrants in a population of ten million people – which is an enormous number – they literally do whatever they want and they remain unpunished”.

Dateline also underlined the “denunciation of Golden Dawn’s  ideology and practices by journalists, representatives of anti-racist associations, intellectuals and public officials in Greece through public statements”.

Regarding Golden Dawn’s plans to open offices in Australia and opposition from Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Panagiotaros said:  ”We could tell Julia Gillard to look back a couple hundred years to see what they did to the Aboriginals, and not lecturing us about racism and rights. You’ll see us in Australia – summer or a bit later, but you’ll definitely find us there.”

Xenophon, who was born in Adelaide, South Australia, to Greek and Greek Cypriot migrants, is now seeking to register his own political party in an effort to enhance his chances of being reelected in the national election that will take place in September. Independent Senator Xenophon has applied to the Electoral Commission to recognize Nick Xenophon Group as a party.

“The fact that there have only been very few independents – a handful of them – in 112 years since the formation of the Senate indicates just how hard it is for independents to get across the line if they’re not above the line,” states Xenophon.

Xenophon was initially senator in the state of South Australia. Then he resigned to assert as an independent a position in the federal Senate. He succeeded. Today he is one of the most powerful politicians in Australia and his vote in the Senate is of decisive importance.

Xenophon became known to South Australia for his fight against gambling, a fight he continued throughout the rest of Australia.

The Society of Friends of Greek Culture, which will be comprised of eminent personalities of the Australian society and the Diaspora, will closely cooperate with Diaspora organizations and will strengthen the dissemination, cultivation and development of Greek culture.

On May 19, about 250 people gathered in the auditorium of the School of Medicine of the University of Notre Dame in Perth and founded the first Centre of the Society of Friends of Greek Culture, appointing as its founding President the former Minister of Education, Robert Pearce.

Many Australian MP’s and Academics, the Consul of Greece in Western Australia, Sofia Choli, presidents of communities and unions and others attended the event, as well as members of the Society.

The Ambassador of Greece to Australia, Charalambos Dafaranos, and his wife were invited to the two-hour event, in which he was the keynote speaker. The ceremony was opened by the renowned businessman Evangelos Petrelis and then followed a speech by the founding President of the Society of Friends of Greek Culture, Robert Pearce.

His first words were in Greek “I announce to you that I was elected president of the Society of Friends of Greek Culture. Today I’m here with my colleague MP’s and academics who are members of the Society. I call you and I invite you to go along all together and to help, not only to promote the Greek Culture, but to assist Greece to exit the European crisis which plagues the country,” and continued: “This summer I will visit first the nautical clubs of Perth in order to urge my Australian countrymen to visit Greece in order to feel the joy I feel when I visit Greece every year to do yachting. The Greek seas will fascinate them, the islands will enchant them and they will also become part of the Greek culture,”  the former Minister of Education passionately announced receiving a warm applause by the attendants.

The medals will be awarded by the Consul General for Greece in Melbourne, Eleni Lianidou, and the Deputy Chief of the Hellenic National Defense General Staff (HNDGS), Vice Admiral Alexandros Theodosiou, who represents the Hellenic Armed Forces in events commemorating the Battle of Crete that take place in Australia. The ceremony award will be held on May 27 at the Consulate of Greece in Melbourne.

The Pancretan Association of Melbourne has recently honored Leslie Manning, one of the few remaining veterans who fought in the Battle of Crete, who celebrated his one hundredth birthday on April 19.

Manning, visibly moved, narrated incidents from the battle, as well as his personal adventures and amazed everyone with his mental agility, while he had brought old photographs with him. His daughter Linda stated that with this expression of love they have given him 10 more years of life.

The initiative began in July 2012 by a small group of passionate animal lovers, who run and cycled from Marathon to the center of Athens in Greece in order to awaken people on stray animals’ living conditions in and out of Greece. The group decided to establish it as an annual event with teams running marathons in both Greece and Australia.

Chief organizers of Penny Marathon are the Greek-Australian sisters Ellie and Pep Prodromou. “The idea to run the original route of the Athens Classic Marathon during the summer was a way to collect a modest amount of donations from relatives, friends and others in order to offer it to stray animal shelters,” the sisters noted.

Athletes, runners and cyclists, as well as volunteers in Greece expressed their solidarity and participated in this effort along with the sisters.

The 2012 Penny Marathon was completed in four and a half hours and ended at the Kallimarmaro Stadium.

In both Greece and Australia there are problems concerning stray animals. “In Greece, there are stray cats and dogs on every street corner, trying to avoid the cold or find some food,” as Ellie said. She added that, “Besides indifference and neglect, there’s also abuse and brutality.”

In Australia, even with the neutering and adoption programs, hundreds of thousands of pets are killed ever year because they are unwanted and cannot find homes.

Penny Marathon was named after a stray dog that lived on the streets of Athens, but died young. The Penny Marathon 2013 will be held on July 14 in Athens, Greece and Sydney, Australia.

The 14-year-old student, member of the Gurindji tribe, whose home town is about 460 km southwest of Katherine in northern Australia, and is also of Greek descent from the beautiful island of Kalymnos, lives in Darwin with his grandmother Elaine.

Thanasis’ persistence and tenacity is inspiring as he chose not to compromise with the few educational possibilities offered in Darwin and sought better prospects for a good college education. After a series of interviews, he was granted a boarding scholarship at Scots College in Sydney. The scholarship is worth about $55,000 a year.

Thanasi grew up in Darwin with his grandmother. He was only 18 months old when his grandmother successfully fought for his custody through courts, a battle that proved the ultimate foundation for his start in life. “My mum wasn’t very capable of raising us . . . Nan just didn’t think she could do a very good job,” he said. “I guess she (Nan) did a good job because I am here.”

These are the words of mature Thanasis, whose desire for learning gave him the power to make his dream come true.

Bin-Sallik, an emeritus professor at Charles Darwin University, is the first Aboriginal to work in Australia’s higher education system and the first to gain a doctorate – in education – from Harvard. “Thanasis realized he had opportunity – a bright child with an inquisitive mind. He begged me to help him get to boarding school, and begged me to convince his nan Elaine to let him go,” she said.

According to the newspaper The Weekend Australian, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the relevant resolution of the parliament of the second largest Australian State and talked about “hate speeches that have nothing to do with the actual historical data.”

According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs the relevant resolution “which is full of inaccuracies and exaggerations was adopted without any check,” while it is stressed that “such actions affect the warm relations between Australia and Turkey”.

The Consulate General of Turkey to Australia, Gülseren Çelik, wrote a letter to the NSW Parliament in which she stresses that, “Australia has nothing to gain by keeping alive controversial historical events and by taking them to places they do not belong”.

Meanwhile, during the weekend the Pontian Hellenism of Australia honored the memory of its ancestors, who were massacred by the Turks in the Asia Minor Catastrophe.

On May 18, Diaspora organizations laid wreaths at the Australian-Greek War Memorial to the fallen men, and on May 19 the traditional memorial at St. Efstathios Cathedral took place.

Much of Brisbane’s entire Greek community was present: the stallholders, the traders, the Greek Orthodox community of St. George and the Greek people who live there and are now Australians.

As brisbanetimes reports, along with the community, there were also newcomers, like Amish Nardha, from New Zealand, who traveled with his son Veer, from Underwood, to experience the Paniyiri for the first time. Amish said that the event is awesome and was surprised by the amount of people. He loved the the Greek food and the Greek beers and enjoyed the entertainment program, which lasted until the fireworks at 7 pm.

There were also games, like a wine stomping competition and spontaneous dances, in which many people of the crowd participated.

Brisbane’s inner-Greek was smiling all over the world in this successful Paniyiri, were people were gathered to eat, drink, talk a lot and dance a lot and have fun, in a beautiful day. Final attendance figures were being counted late at the end of the night to see if it broke the record set in 2012.