Decision Maker: Council
Decision status: Recommendations Determined
Minute by the Lord Mayor
To
Council:
I inform
Council of the death of Jack Mundey, trade union leader, environmental
activist, protector of our natural and built heritage and former Sydney City
Council Alderman on 10 May 2020.
John
Bernard Mundey was born on 17 October 1929 in Malanda, a small town on the
Atherton
Tableland 100km west of Cairns in far north Queensland, at the beginning of the
Great Depression. His mother died when he was six and his four siblings were
scattered among relatives. Jack remained with his father, a dairy farmer who
moved around looking for work. Jack attended several schools, running away from
his last school, St Augustine's, Cairns at the age of 14 because of its
"authoritarian methods" of discipline.
He had
excelled at sport and in 1951 moved to Sydney to play rugby league for
Parramatta, which he continued for three years, mostly in the reserve grade. He
also worked initially as a plumber’s apprentice, then in a range of jobs,
eventually becoming a builder’s labourer.
As Jack
changed jobs, he became increasingly involved in the union movement. This
culminated with his active membership of the Builders Labourers Federation
leading to him being elected as a full-time organiser in 1962. In 1968 Jack,
Bob Pringle and Joe Owens supported by a rank and file committee took over the
union leadership with Jack becoming secretary.
Jack’s
election coincided with the beginning of a building boom in Sydney. Workplace
safety and improving wages and conditions in this environment were the initial
priorities. Jack however believed that the union movement had wider social
responsibilities and should act on them. This was put to the test when the
union was approached by a group of women who had exhausted all obvious avenues
in their campaign to save a small patch of bushland in Hunters Hill from
residential development. When a public meeting attended by several hundred
people supported their campaign, the union agreed to not allow work on the site
and stop work on the developer’s new office building. This was the world’s
first green ban, although the name came later. Kelly’s Bush is still there,
part of a larger park on the Parramatta River.
Around 40
green bans followed, all imposed with widespread community support. They
preserved significant sites and social housing in The Rocks, Woolloomooloo,
Centennial Park and Victoria Street in Potts Point. Other green bans stopped a
car park for the Opera House being built underneath the Royal Botanic Gardens
and ensured a new theatre would be included in the MLC Centre development to
replace the theatre which had occupied the same site since 1875. Another green
ban supported the rights of a gay university student threatened with expulsion
from his residential college. A “Blak” Ban was placed on supposedly 'empty'
houses in Redfern were actually occupied by Indigenous Australians. That ban
gave the newly elected Whitlam Government time to buy the houses and hand them
over to a new housing company under Aboriginal control.
In a
letter to the Sydney Morning Herald Jack explained that the preferred to build
urgently required hospitals, schools, other public utilities, high-quality
flats, units and houses, provided they are designed with adequate concern for
the environment, than to build ugly unimaginative architecturally-bankrupt
blocks of concrete and glass offices … “
“The environmental interests of three million people are at
stake and cannot be left to developers and building employers whose main
concern is making profit. Progressive unions, like ours, therefore have a very
useful social role to play in the citizens' interest, and we intend to play
it.”
Jack
retired as Builders Labourers Federation Secretary on 1 November 1973,
consistent with his belief that union officials should have limited tenure and
return to the rank and file and Joe Owens succeeded him. The following year the
Federal office of the Builders Labourers Federation took over the NSW Branch
and in 1975 Jack, Joe Owens, Bob Pringle and several of their supporters were
expelled. Their membership was reinstated in November 1981, just as Jack was
launching his book, Green Bans and Beyond.
Jack
continued his activism both in Australia and internationally, undertaking a
lecture tour, which included London's Centre of Environmental Studies and the
first United Nations Conference on the Built Environment in 1976. He was a
Communist Party candidate for the Senate in 1974 and just missed out being
elected to the Legislative Council in 1978.
Jack was
elected to Sydney City Council in April 1984 as an Alderman for Gipps Ward,
which covered the northern CBD, The Rocks and Millers and Dawes Points, one of
nine independents elected that year. A former Liberal Alderman described us as
“communists and trendy bleeding heart lefties”. We were all committed to
ensuring people had a voice in the decisions that impact on their lives.
Jack
chaired Council’s Planning Committee until September 1985, which historian
Hilary Golder has suggested that probably sent shivers down many a developer’s
spine! He promoted low-cost housing and attempted to broaden the social and
environmental criteria used to assess development applications. He was active
in our campaign against the monorail, a developer led proposal to link the CBD
to the Darling Harbour development. The alternative, which Council supported,
was light rail connected with other public transport.
In March
1987 the State Labor Government sacked the Council. Jack continued his activism
supporting community groups, Indigenous Australians, educational institutions,
and antinuclear campaigns. He served as a Councillor of the Australian
Conservation Foundation from 1974 to 1993 and as Chair of the Historic Houses
Trust from 1995 to 2001. During the 1990s he was involved in campaigns to
protect Circular Quay and the Opera House precinct.
His
activism continued into this century. In
2003, he became a member of the Australian
Greens, in support of their
opposition to the Iraq War and their environmental stance. In 2012 he joined the action
to preserve what is thought to be the oldest public square in Australia,
Thompson Square and protect Windsor Bridge from further development. In 2014 he became Patron of the Friends of Millers Point
after joining the campaign to save the Sirius Building.
It is one
of the many accolades Jack received during his life. In 1998 the University of
Western
Sydney made Jack an honorary Doctor of Letters and an honorary Doctor of
Science
in recognition of his service to the environment. Three years later, in 2001,
the University of Sydney presented Jack with an honorary degree of Master of
Environment - a degree especially created for him. In 2000 he was made an
Officer of the Order of Australia for service to “the identification and preservation
of significant sections of Australia's natural and urban heritage through
initiating ‘Green Bans’ and through the Historic Houses Trust of New South
Wales”. In 2007, a portion of Argyle Place in The Rocks was renamed Jack Mundey
Place.
Jack is survived
by his wife Judy, a lawyer and activist in her own right, who supported him in
many of his campaigns. In the late 1950s Jack married Stephanie Lennon, who
died aged only 22, in 1963 15 months after their son Michael’s birth. Michael
died in car accident also at the age of 22.
Jack’s
legacy is not just the natural and built environment that was saved through his
leadership and activism. It is the values which inspired his activism and which
should continue to inspire us.
Recommendation
It is resolved that:
(A)
Council observe a minute’s silence to mark the passing of Jack
Mundey AO, noting his significant contribution to conserving and protecting the
natural and urban environment and heritage, to trade unionism and for activism
in support of Aboriginal, women’s and gay rights, social justice and peace; and
(B)
the Lord Mayor be requested to write to Mr Mundey’s widow, Judy
expressing Council’s condolences.
COUNCILLOR CLOVER
MOORE
Lord Mayor
Moved by the Chair (the Lord Mayor) –
That the Minute by the Lord Mayor be endorsed and adopted.
Carried unanimously.
Note – All those present at the meeting, held remotely, observed a
minute’s silence in memory of Jack Mundey.
S051491
Report author: Erin Cashman
Publication date: 18/05/2020
Date of decision: 18/05/2020
Decided at meeting: 18/05/2020 - Council
Accompanying Documents: