Auskar Surbakti (born February 27, 1988) is an Australian broadcast journalist who is currently an anchor and program host at the international television news network, TRT World.^[1] In addition to anchoring news bulletins, he is the host of the channel's flagship internatonal business and finance programme, Money Talks. In 2023, he and TRT World's documentary team won a News & Documentary Emmy Award for their film on alleged war crimes committed during the war in Ukraine.

Surbakti was born in Melbourne, Australia, to Indonesian parents of Karo heritage.^[2] He was raised and educated in Indonesia and Australia, and attended high school at St. Paul's, where he is on the honor roll. He obtained undergraduate degrees in journalism and international relations from RMIT University, where he graduated with distinction. He was also inducted into the Golden Key International Honor Society. Surbakti volunteered for a number of organisations while at high school and university, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, and the Australian Red Cross.

At St Paul's, Surbakti launched the high school's public radio station, hosting a news and music show. During university, he undertook a number of internships related to his studies at organizations including the United Nations in Geneva and The Hague, as well as the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers, the Herald Sun and the Sunday Herald Sun.

During his university studies, Surbakti also worked as a newsreader on the newly-launched radio station, syn fm, before becoming its News and Current Affairs Director.

He co-presented a news segment on a weekend variety television program on Channel 31, and later developed, produced and co-presented a news and current affairs program for the channel.

Surbakti started his professional career in a major television market as an associate producer for Network Ten's flagship daily news programs, Ten News at Five, for the Melbourne and Adelaide markets.

In 2006, Surbakti left Network Ten to begin a cadetship at the Australian public broadcaster, SBS. He trained in the network's radio, television, and digital newsrooms. He also received training at the publisher of Australia's major broadsheet newspapers, Fairfax Media.

After the cadetship, he became a reporter for the network's flagship national television news bulletin, World News Australia, filing reports from across Australia. He later became a poltical correspondent, reporting on national politics from the press gallery at Parliament House in the capital, Canberra.

Surbakti also became a foreign correspondent, reporting from across the Asia-Pacific region, as well as Europe. He had a particular focus on Indonesia, using his extensive knowledge of the country and his Indonesian language skills to file reports on a range of news events. In 2008, he won a UN Media Award for his Rebuilding Aceh series that he filmed himself in Indonesia's Aceh province,^[3] documenting its recovery from the devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed an estimated 129,775 people in Aceh alone, with 38,786 people reported missing.^[4] In 2009, he was a UN Media Award finalist for his coverage of the twin earthquakes that struck the Indonesian province of West Sumatra.^[5]

While on assignment for World Youth Day, Surbakti interviewed Pope Benedict XVI aboard the papal flight from Italy to Australia.^[6] The pope told Surbakti that he would be apologizing for historical incidents of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Australia, which was reported as breaking news ahead of the pope's arrival in Australia.

During his time at SBS, Surbakti also worked as a correspondent and producer for the network's current affairs programs, including Dateline, Insight, and Living Black.

Surbakti was invited by the University of Technology Sydney to teach television journalism at its renowned journalism school. He served as a journalism professor at UTS in 2009 and 2010, while continuing his work as a journalist at SBS.

In 2011, Surbakti joined Australia's largest public broadcaster, the ABC, as a presenter and correspondent. Throughout his time at the network, he presented a number of programs, including the international news and current affairs show, The World; the morning news and current affairs magazine program, Weekend Breakfast; rolling news coverage on the ABC's 24-hour news channel; and business and finance segments. He also presented news bulletins on the ABC's international service, Australia Network, which broadcast into the Asia-Pacific region. In addition to the ABC's television channels, Surbakti presented radio programs for the network, including Connect Asia, Asia Pacific, Asia Review, and Pacific Beat. He was also one of the founding video journalists for the ABC's new audience-driven investigative program, Story Hunters.^[7]

As a correspondent, Surbakti reported from across the Asia-Pacific region, including Indonesia, Singapore, India, Cambodia, Timor Leste and China. In Indonesia, some notable stories he covered included illegal people smuggling operations based in the country, corruption in aid programs, and poverty on the popular resort island of Bali. In Cambodia, he covered the disputed 2013 general election that saw the exiled opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, return to contest the poll.^[8]

He was awarded a number of journalism prizes and fellowships while at the network, including the prestigious Elizabeth O’Neill Journalism Award in 2011, the Asia Pacific Journalism Centre's fellowship to China in 2014, and was a delegate to the 2016 Australia-India Youth Dialogue.^[9]

In 2017, Surbakti was invited to host an event with the US President Barack Obama in Jakarta, Indonesia. The international conference was organzied by the US Department of State and Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.^[10]

Surbakti became a consultant at the World Bank in 2014. As part of the organization's External and Corporate Relations division, he produced and hosted the Praxis discussion series on economic and development issues with the bank's teams in Australia, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands.

In 2018, Surbakti joined the new international news network, TRT World, as an anchor and correspondent. As well as presenting the channel's news coverage, he also hosts its international business and finance program, Money Talks. He has also hosted other TRT World programs, including Newsfeed, Africa Matters, and Playback. He has anchored coverage of major world news events, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the 2020 and 2024 US presidential elections, the 2021 Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the 2023 Türkiye-Syria earthquakes, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria in 2024, and the 2025 ceasefire in Gaza.

In 2022, he joined the channel's award-winning documentary film program, Off The Grid, and produced Ukraine Wartime Diaries, a film about alleged war crimes committed during the Russia-Ukraine war. In 2023, it was nominated for—and won—a News & Documentary Emmy Award in the International Current Affairs category.^[11] Surbakti and the team accepted the award at the 44th News and Documentary Emmy Awards ceremony in New York City, held on September 27, 2023.

Surbakti has been a moderator at the TRT World Forum, the network's annual international diplomatic conference, bringing together global leaders, academics, journalists, politicians and members of civil society to grapple with the challenges of our time.^[12] Over the years at the forum, he has hosted various keynote speakers and panelists including the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė; the Turkish Minister of Treasury and Finance, Mehmet Şimşek; the director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, Achim Steiner; and the managing director of the World Economic Forum, Mirek Dušek.