People Australia

Jack Mundey, 1984

City of Sydney Archives, 585733

John Bernard (Jack) Mundey (1929-2020) builders’ labourer, trade union official and environmentalist

Birth: 17 October 1929 at Malanda, Atherton Tableland, North Queensland, son of John Patrick Mundey (1889-1967), a farmer and auctioneer , born at Bemboka, New South Wales, and Queensland-born Aileen Katherine, née Clifford (1893-1936). Marriages: (1) 1957 at Parramatta, Sydney, to Stephanie Fay Veronica Lennon (1939-1961). They had one son. (2) 1965 a widower to Judith Ann (Judy) Willcocks. Death: 10 May 2020 at Sydney. 

• He came from an Irish-Catholic family.
• Moved to Sydney to play rugby league for Parramatta in 1950. Became a builders' labourer.
• Was a job delegate in Sydney. Elected organiser in the Builders’ Labourers Federation (BLF) in 1962. He was secretary of the NSW BLF from 1968 to 1973.
• Became interested in ecological activities and the preservation of buildings with historical or architectural merit. Under Jack's leadership the BLF pioneered bans on the development of forty-three sites throughout Sydney in the 1970s which were known as 'green bans'. This helped to preserve many historic buildings in places such as The Rocks, Kings Cross and Wooloomooloo.
• He was president of the NSW Urban Environment Coalition; national councillor for NSW Australian Conservation Foundation, from about 1973 to 1984 at least.
• Joined the Communist Party of Australia in 1956; president of Sydney district in the early 1960s and was later national president.
• Involved in bitter struggle with BLF under the leadership of Norm Gallagher which caused him to be ousted from the union. His membership re-instated, in 1981 at a time when he contested the State secretary position in NSW branch BLF and lost. Believed to have been blacklisted by building employers for labouring work.
• He was mostly unemployed in mid-1980s at least, with casual work in lecturing on conservation. Active in the anti-war movement for many years.
• Contested Sydney City Council's Gipps Ward elections as representative of the Residents' Action Group in 1984. He was a councillor for the city of Sydney from 1984 to 1987.
• Was a Rugby League football player in North Queensland and, for three years a professional player for Parramatta.
• In 1981 he launched his book Green bans and beyond. 

Sources
Labor Year Book, 1973; Sydney Morning Herald, 27 March 1984, p 11.