URBAN DEVELOPMENT
JACK MUNDEY
THE FATHER OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTALISM UNION LEADER AND ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST, JACK MUNDEY, PASSED AWAY LAST MONTH, AGED 90. AS TINA PERINOTTO REPORTS, MUNDAY WAS A CHAMPION FOR THE PLANET AND WORKING-CLASS COMMUNITIES.
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hen I was still a fledgling journalist, I interviewed Jack Rich, then head of the giant AMP group. After brief greetings, Rich took me over to the window of his office with its magnificent panorama of Circular Quay and The Rocks. “See that”, he said, indicating the great sandstone buildings of the Rocks that formed Sydney’s first colonial settlement, with their tight cobblestone alleyways and rough stairs that led to pokey shops, cafes and pubs still reeking with history. “If it wasn’t for Jack Mundey and the BLF [the Builders Labourers Federation union] we would have flattened it all.” Clearly this was one legendary battle — mighty developer against an almost as powerful building union — that Rich
Inner Sydney Voice • Winter 2020 • www.innersydneyvoice.org.au
was glad his side had lost. It had taken a couple of decades for the turnaround in sentiment to be (at least publicly) admitted. And it was a powerful lesson in the beauty of forestalled action — just in case your perspective changes and what you stand to destroy is gone forever. But Jack Mundey, who passed away last month, left a much bigger legacy than The Rocks. He led the fabulously named “green bans” movement, where union members refused to work on or demolish buildings and areas of historic or environmental significance. Mundey later became a well-known mascot for developers wanting to show they cared about the environment, and community groups alike, fighting a
