Profile - Jack Mundey (1929-2020)

Jack was born in Queensland in 1929 and moved to Sydney aged 19, where he worked as a metalworker and builder’s labourer and became a member of the NSW branches of the Federated Ironworkers’ Association and the Builders’ Labourers Federation (BLF), becoming Secretary of the BLF in 1968. He also joined the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) in 1957. 

Jack came to great prominence as leader of the NSW Branch of the BLF when the Green Bans began. In June 1971, the BLF received a request by a local action group of 13 women in Hunters Hill. They requested the union consider a ban on building at Kelly’s Bush, an area of foreshore bushland that was slated for development. This started a campaign of environmental activism that lasted four years and resulted in the BLF joining with numerous resident action groups, environmental groups and other trade unions to protect a number of buildings, as well as whole areas across Sydney and farther afield, from demolition and development. 

The BLF, under the leadership of Jack, Joe Owens and Bob Pringle, sought to retain open public spaces, heritage buildings and working-class residential areas, and focus on building public buildings rather than what Jack Mundey referred to as “ugly unimaginative architecturally-bankrupt blocks of concrete and glass offices”. Arguably the most famous areas in Sydney subject to Green Bans were in The Rocks, Woolloomooloo, Darlinghurst and Kings Cross, however the bans included many areas of Sydney.   

Jack was expelled from the BLF in 1975 by the federal leadership of the union (which had become known as Australian Building Construction Employees & Builders’ Labourers’ Federation) headed by controversial figure Norm Gallagher.  

While Jack was best known for his work with the BLF and environmental activism, he was also an active communist, having joined the Party in the 1950s and rising to its leadership. In 1978 he stood as a Communist Party of Australia (CPA) candidate for the NSW Legislative Council, narrowly missing out on a seat. During the 1980s he served on the City of Sydney Council and as chair of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW.  

He continued the fight to protect Sydney’s heritage and green spaces, campaigning against developments in The Rocks, Millers Point and Barangaroo.  

Jack Mundey died on 11 May 2020 at the age of 90.

References

Australian Communist Party 2020, Jack Mundey, accessed <https://www.auscp.org.au/history/jack-mundey>

City of Sydney n.d., Sydney's Aldermen: Jack Mundey, accessed

Burgmann, M & Burgmann, V 1999, Greens Bans, Red Union: Environmental Activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers' Federation, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney