Jack Mundey
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Jack Mundey (born 17 October 1929) is a distinguished Australian union and environmental activist. He came to prominence during the 1970s for leading the New South Wales Builders' Labourers Federation (BLF) in the famous Green Bans, whereby the BLF led a successful campaign to protect the built and natural environment of Sydney from excessive and inappropriate development. Mundey is now Chair of the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.
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[edit] Early Years
Born in Malanda 100km west of Cairns on the Atherton Tableland in far north Queensland one of five children. His mother died when he was six. He was educated at Malanda Primary School and St. Augustine's Cairns from which he ran away from due to their 'authoritarian methods'. Mundey came to Sydney in the early 1950s when he was 19 and became a metalworker and later builder's labourer joining successively the Federated Ironworkers' Union and Builders Labourers Federation. It was during this period in heavy industry that he 'became ... concerned about the lack of safety, about the paucity of conditions and where my interest in trade unionism and egalitarian attitudes really developed.' In that time he also played rugby league for Parramatta under coach Vic Hey for three years. He joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1957.
During the 1960s Mundey was a crusading unionist, who advocated in relation to a wide range of issues, from safety reforms on building sites to wider social issues, such as feminism, gay rights, and the impact of international politics. Mundey considered all of these as subjects worthy of union activism.
[edit] The Green Bans
In 1968, he was elected Secretary of the NSW Builder's Labourers Federation. From this position, Mundey became the highly visible individual who, with his union and supportive community members, was responsible for the green bans that saved much of Sydney's heritage and built environment. He insisted that the priorities of development be reversed such that the open community spaces and heritage buildings be preserved and that affordable public housing was more important than accumulating empty or underused commercial buildings.
Jack Mundey has since described the Green Bans as follows:
- I think the Green Bans were probably the most exciting innovation that the Builders Labourers became involved in. There was so much development taking place and at the outset there was this feeling that 'all development was good - it was progress...' But as historical buildings, and buildings worthy of preservation were knocked down, and whole neighbourhoods were disrupted - for example all the working class people in the Rocks were going to be thrown out for high-rise development - a segment of the population said 'well, we should be concerned about our vanishing heritage.
In 1975 Mundey and other NSW leaders of the BLF were expelled from the union by the federal leadership under Norm Gallagher, who was later to be convicted of corrupt dealings with developers.
[edit] Later career
In 1988 the University of Western Sydney bestowed an honorary Doctor of Letters and the University of NSW also bestowed an honorary Doctor of Science in recognition of his years of service to the environment for the last 30 years.
Mundey was made a Life Member of the Australian Conservation Foundation in the 1990s. In 1995, in keeping with his continued deep interest in Sydney and the state's urban environment and heritage, he was appointed Chair of the NSW Historic Houses Trust.
In 1982 his only son Michael was killed in a car accident.
His autobiography Green Bans and Beyond was published in 1981.
[edit] References
Jack Mundey Green Bans and Beyond (1981)
