(2022) The Union Leader Who Dared to Dream
Tom McDonald was a building union leader and building industry reformer, superannuation pioneer, pro-Moscow communist turned “broad left” warrior, and celebrated elder of the Australian labour movement.
Tom McDonald was a building union leader and building industry reformer, superannuation pioneer, pro-Moscow communist turned “broad left” warrior, and celebrated elder of the Australian labour movement.
16 July 1931 – 13 March 2022
Peter McMahon, champion of garbologists – as he proudly said, local government union leader, NSW Upper House Labor politician, industrial tribunal member, historian, and community activist, had many significant achievements, including improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of employees, and recruiting Paul Keating to work as a young research officer for the Municipal Employees’ Union (MEU) before the budding politician propelled himself, aged 25, into the Federal parliament in 1969.
It is achingly sad that the whip-smart, vivacious, principled, Senator Kimberley Kitching died on Thursday in Melbourne, aged 52, apparently of a sudden heart-attack.
For fifty-seven years, James (“Jim”) Glen Service, “Mr Canberra”, banker, property expert and company director, was identified with most things commercial and cultural that happened in the national capital. Those who knew him found a tough-minded businessman, conscientious about “giving back”, with a wonderful sense of the absurd.
Maurie Daly, geographer, raconteur, family man, academic critic of urban planning follies, gained an international following for the clarity and insightfulness of his analysis of city and place.
The presence of members of Jewish, Orthodox Christian, and various Protestant denominations at the funeral indicated that this was no ordinary man. “Even if you cry your eyes out, don’t worry; he was worth every tear,” the Bishop of Wollongong, The Most Rev. Brian Mascord, said in his homily.
John Richard Caldon, investment banker and entrepreneur, who died of complications of lung cancer on Tuesday 16 February, arguably had the greatest impact on Australia of any Yorkshireman since Captain Cook.
Owen Harries (1930-2020), foreign policy adviser, thinker, gadfly, editor, and advocate of the “national interest” realist tradition, died last week. His influence was profound in Australia and globally. He persuaded, stung, prodded those around him to think.
Our father, who art in heaven, was a complex man – humble, intelligent, self-deprecating (we all got our humour – the Easson wit – from him), proud of his Celtic blood (frugal, sentimental, fiery, brave.)
John Bernard “Jack” Mundey (1929-2000), conservationist, union leader, activist, was an unlikely hero. This article briefly summarises his life, achievements and, finally, reflects on lessons from a life that endured more disappointments than triumphs.