Niki Savva

Niki Savva
Born	Choli, Cyprus
Occupation	Journalist, political staffer
Parents	Andreas Savva (father) Elpiniki (mother)

Niki Savva is an Australian journalist, author, and former political staffer of the Liberal Party of Australia.

Early life

Savva was born in the village of Choli, Cyprus. Her father Andreas emigrated to Melbourne, Australia in 1951 and she followed with her mother Elpiniki and brother Steven several years later.

Career and personal life

Savva started work as a journalist at the Dandenong Journal, before moving to The Australian newspaper. In her early twenties, she moved to Canberra to work as a correspondent in the Canberra press gallery, for The Australian newspaper and later for the Herald Sun and The Age. She also worked as the Washington correspondent for News Limited.

The illness and death of her sister Christina at 43 caused Savva to reconsider her career in journalism in 1997, and she accepted a job offer from federal Treasurer Peter Costello as his media advisor. She worked for Costello for six years before joining the staff of Prime Minister John Howard for three years on Howard's Cabinet Policy Unit.

She now writes as a columnist for The Australian and appears regularly as a panelist on the ABC's Insiders program.

Savva is married to Vince Woolcock, a Liberal political staffer in the office of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Political views

In a book about her time as a Liberal political staffer, Savva described herself as a "conservative leftie". On the Liberal side of politics, she supported Peter Costello's leadership ambitions, over those of conservative John Howard; and, later, Malcolm Turnbull's leadership ambitions over those of conservative Tony Abbott.

According to journalist Laurie Oakes, Savva said in 2011 that journalists can lie, but politicians shouldn't: "As a journalist I lied often, usually about my sources, but about other things, too. Journalists can and do get away with lying; politicians and staff can't. Nor should they," she said.

In 2016 she published a controversial book—The Road to Ruin—which blamed the fall of the Abbott Government on Prime Minister Tony Abbott's closeness to his chief of staff, Peta Credlin. Savva was criticised by Abbott and Credlin, and other journalists including the ABC's Media Watch, for not contacting the subjects of her book for comment on its claims, or giving them a right of reply. Publisher Louise Adler called Savva's work a "dispiriting and self-serving revenge tale".

Books

Date first published	Title	Publisher information	Notes
22 November 2010	So Greek: Confessions of a Conservative Leftie	Scribe Publishers, paperback, ISBN 1-92164-083-9
7 March 2016	The Road to Ruin: how Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government	Scribe Publishers, paperback, ISBN 1-92532-140-1