Australian Biography - Jack Mundey

Animated Film Australia Logo

Australian Biography Graphic Sequence

FADE IN.

Archival: Jack in crowd with megaphone

Super:
Jack Mundey
Born Queensland, 1929
Unionist & Environmentalist

FREEZE FRAME.

DISSOLVE TO:

Jack sync: We do not believe that Union officialdom should lock itself away in a room and work out what's best for the workers. What should happen, if we're talking about saving Sydney, if we're talking about saving our environment, well then the people from the 'Loo, the people from Victoria St., the people from the Rocks, from Waterloo, they should be at that meeting today.

[Music]

Jack

Interviewer v/o: The name Jack Mundey is very much associated with Sydney but you were actually born in far north Queensland. What kind of a childhood did you have there?

Jack sync: Well I, I guess that when I came to Sydney the thing that I missed was the beautiful terrain of the Atherton Tableland.

Archival: Atherton Tablelands

Jack v/o: It is one of the most beautiful parts of Australia and growing up as a little kid on a, on a

Archival: Atherton Tablelands

dairy farm, even though the circumstances were pretty modest, was still very refreshing when I look back on it.

Archival: Row boats in stream

Swimming in the, those beautiful clear streams and

Archival: Row boats in stream

walking through a rain forest, and so

Archival: People bush walking

I was, I guess an environmentalist from that time on,

Jack

Jack sync: I was only six when my mother died.

Photo: Family portrait

Jack v/o: The Depression was at its worst and there were five little kids

Photo: Jack's mother

on a, on a poverty stricken dairy farm, I was looked upon by the other kids as a bit of mummy's boy,

Jack

Jack sync: and I do remember when the realisation that she was dead hit me, that first real shock of my life, what did it all mean? When I saw the other aunts crying and I knew she was, mummy's gone, mummy's gone to heaven, I knew she'd gone

Photo: Jack's mother nad his sister

jack v/o: you know and at that stage the

Photo: Jack's mother

children were farmed out to different relatives, I remained with my father

Photo: Jack's father

who was then working on another farm, just working for a farmer.

Interviewer v/o: Jack, you were brought up a

Photo: Alter boys around the alter

catholic. What kind of religious education did you have?

I was particularly impressed

Jack

Jack sync: with one aspect of it, that said if you die with venial sin well you go to purgatory for a while, but if you die with mortal sin you go to hell forever and ever and ever. And I thought, Jesus Christ that's a long time and as a young kid I thought, forever, you know, and it strengthened my faith, faith and for a while I became a devoted catholic at eight years of age. But, no, seriously I thought, you know, it really shot home the catholic teaching of little kids and how it puts the fear of Christ in them.

Interviewer v/o: And have you avoided mortal sin for the rest of your life?

Jack sync: All depends what you call mortal sin, I have some difficulty defining it, but, no, I'd say I have probably serious venial sins [laughs].

Interviewer v/o: What was school like

Photo: school class photo

for you?

Jack v/o: I was always pretty good. I only really went to primary school

Photo: Young Jack and 2 others

because I left my first year at secondary school when I was at the Marist Brothers

Photo: Marist Brothers college

boarding school when I left it very suddenly

Photo: Students outside college

and I think the authoritarian methods

Jack

Jack sync: didn't coincide with some of my thinking and in fact, after about six months I ran away

Photo: school playground

Jack v/o: so you could say that I only had a primary school education. But I guess I'd say that

Photo: People in dirt, church in BG

through my socialist beliefs I have a lot of self-education

Jack

Jack sync: And so, I've read widely, and so I'd have to put myself down in old age as a fairly successful self-educated person.

Photo: people sitting on water tanks incl Jack

Interviewer v/o: After you ran away from school you were apprenticed to a local

Photo: Jack sitting on water tank

plumber when you got an offer to go

Photo: Jack and friend

to Sydney to play league for Parramatta. Just how good a player were you?

Photo: Young Jack

Jack v/o: I was a good rugby league player and represented the Atherton Tableland and

Photo: Jack in footy gear

played right throughout the north, in the country, I trained all the year round

Jack

Jack sync: and I think it made me look better than what I really was, because in Sydney I was pretty ordinary

Photo: Football team

Jack v/o: player. and as I got into my later 20s I became more involved in unionism and, then of course politics.
I think that my father had, had

Photo: Jack's father

Jack v/o: sown the seeds of politics in me in the sense that his

Jack

Jack sync: understanding and explanation of how so rapidly we could go from a depression to a war and then into a post-war boom, all the course of a decade and a half, I think made me think a lot about the, that something was wrong in society, and certainly for those at the bottom of the pile, of which I always considered myself, always very much working class person and never aspiring to being anything other than that.

Photo: Jack with friend

Jack v/o: And so I guess that I was a natural left-leaning

Photo: Young Jack

individual.

Interviewer v/o: Why did you join the communist party and not the Labor party?

Jack

Jack sync: I suppose it was a stronger belief that a socialist system could come about by the Communist Party.

Archival: Man selling communist newspapers

Jake v/o: and my understanding of socialism and communism

Archival: Tribune Newspaper

developed when I went to schools, that within in the Communist Party

Archival: People selling newspapers

and then over the years my understanding of the

Jack

Jack sync: enormity of the evils of Stalinism, that so perverted the rather terrific ideas, the socialist ideals, the Marxism that I still believe in.

Interviewer v/o: Now it was 1957

Archival: Building site

when you became a builder's labourer. What was the building industry like when you first joined it?

Archival: Builder's labourer digging hole

Jack v/o: The conditions

Archival: Labourers in ditch

were appalling, The workers were not respected

Archival: Man with wheelbarrow

in any sense of the word. Buildings were going

Archival: overhead shot from tall building

higher, more dangerous work practices were being

Archival: Man suspended by rope

introduced because of the height of the buildings and one year there were 14 dog men who used to ride the load in those days,

Archival: Planks of wood hauled by rope

were killed,. One of the reasons conditions were

Archival: labourer climbing ladder

so poor was that the builders' labourers' union

Archival: Tin shed

was led by a group of people who were

Archival: Tin shed

in collusion with

Archival: Building site

the builders. Worked hand in glove with them,

Archival: Builder's labourers

and opposed any sort of militant

Archival: sledge hammer bashing cement

action and in

Archival: Man with sledge hammer

fact people like myself were hounded

Archival: Man in trench with jackhammer

off jobs.

Archival: Building site

Interviewer v/o: And a group of you formed a rank and

Photo: Jack at table with others

file committee to do something about it. How did you get on?

Jack v/o: the slogan we worked under was we had to civilise the industry

Jack

Jack sync: and bring a bit of decency to the rights of the workers, and they were the ingredients that led to hostility with the union leadership.

Archival: Skyscraper construction

Jack v/o: And at the time,we realised that if we were going to have longer

Archival: Worker on building

standing success, well, it

Archival: Man smoothing cement

would mean that we would have to have

Archival: Workers on building site

a level of activity and control within the

Archival: Workers in trench

union movement itself, and that's what we worked to do.

Archival: Workers pouring cement

Interviewer v/o: It was while you were working as a builder's labourer that you got married.

Jack

What effect did your activism have on your marriage

Jack sync: Well I was going through an extremely difficult period because it was just before we broke through in the union movement and

Photo: Stephanie

Jack v/o: Stephanie was pregnant so there was enormous pressure on us but

Photo: Stephanie

she had support for the idea of what I was about and, and went along with it.

Photo: Stephanie

after she gave birth to Michael, she was good style of woman, good build and she fell away, her weight fell right away and

Jack

Jack sync: her health didn't improve and she went into a coma, and Michael was 15 months when Stephanie died and

Photo: Jack with baby Michael

Jack v/o: she was only then 22, and she died of a cerebral haemorrhage And Michael's

Photo: Jack, Michael and Grandmother

grandmother, where we were still living then took over the role of, of mother and

Jack

Jack sync: I, that was '62 and I stayed there for three more years and then '65 I married my present wife, Judy.

Photo: Jack with Judy

Interviewer v/o: How did it work out with Michael and Judy? did they get on well together?

Jack v/o: Oh yes, he was,

Photo: Jack and Judy's wedding

he was just 15 months when Stephanie died and so he was

Photo: Young Michael.

five when we got married, so known her since he was three and, and

Photo: Jack, Judy and Michael

perfectly with her, had a terrific relationship right through life with Judy.

Photo: Michael.

Interviewer v/o: Now when your group took over the union

Photo: Union members

you used strong industrial action and dramatically improved wages and conditions. What made you

Archival: Demonstration outside Sydney Town hall

start using your industrial muscle to support social and political causes?

Jack v/o: The Vietnam War commenced

Archival: Demonstration

and immediately Australia, of course, was split down the centre

Archival: Peace Demonstration

over whether we should be involved or not.

Archival: Police carrying demonstrator

And the union took a stand

Archival: Protest rally

that we shouldn't be involved in the war

Jack

Jack sync: and there was a lot of discussion at the job level on this

Archival: Labourers union protest

Jack v/o: and the big protest marches that took place,

Archival: Woman in protest rally

we always based ourselves on the rights of the

Archival: Worker's demonstration

workers to determine whether they should be in it or not. But also in the support of our own blacks,

Archival: Gurindji people

when the Gurindji people took

Archival: Man talking to Gurindji people

action and the stockmen went on strike in Northern

Archival: Aboriginal man

Territory we brought

Archival: Older Aboriginal man

down the leaders of the

Archival: Aboriginal man

strike and took them round the

Jack

Jack sync: building sites to talk to the building workers about the actual conditions that existed.

Archival: Protest march

Jack v/o: And that, and that the, the whole question of land rights was in fact an

Archival: Demonstrator

issue that the union should be involved in.

Archival: Jack in protest march

all of these matters were being discussed and the apartheid issue had come to the fore particularly with the

Archival: Rugby match

rugby union side coming here in 1971. And Mandela when he came to Australia of course paid

Archival: Football crowd

credit to all of the protesters who took action in that period, so it

Archival: Police and demonstrators

was a, a very

Archival: Protesters

positive

Archival: Police detain protestor

example of demonstration

Archival: Female demonstator

being for the good.

Interviewer v/o: Yours was the first building union

Archival: Male protestor being detained

to allow women on to the job,

Archival: Woman with wheelbarrow

you took action in support of gays-how did you persuade a bunch of builder's labourers in the 60's and 70's

Jack

to come out on behalf of women, blacks and gays?

Jack sync: I think it's precisely because of the manner in which the union leadership had won the confidence of the rank and file about basic union requirements

Archival: Woman labourer

that gave them a certain

Archival: Woman labourers

dignity. it's true that not every builders' labourer was a galloping

Archival: Woman labourer

women's libber or even supporter of the

Archival: Man and woman labourer

rights of gays, but at least

Jack

Jack sync: we broke down the hostility of the more extreme element and let the more progressive element carry resolutions that took the union movement into a more mature position.

Archival: Jack giving speech.

Jack sync: We are not only concerned about ensuring that we have work for all our members, we are also concerned about the type of buildings we build.

Archival: Union members

Interviewer v/o: But it was your next

Archival: Terraced street

move that really put the union on the map. What started the now internationally famous green ban movement?

Jack v/o: Well, first of all I think that the environment

Jack

Jack sync: action of the builders' labourers was easily the most dynamic involvement that the union had.

Archival: Sydney Harbour bridge

Jack v/o: But it came about not by way of any great thinking on the part of the leaders of the builders' labourers, but by way of the unlikely alliance between

Jack

Jack sync: middle upper class people from a fashionable suburb of Sydney, Hunters Hill, who had fought against a proposed development

Archival: Sydney harbour

Jack v/o: or the fortunate few, they were going to destroy the last remaining bush land on Parramatta River.

Archival: People in picnic area

And the women, all women, calling themselves the Battlers for this bit of land called

Archival: Protest signs

Kelly's Bush, came to the builders' labourers union. Some of the workers said, well, Jesus Christ, what do we do? You know, we haven't got any members in Hunters Hill, wouldn't be one there.

Archival: Women in Kelly's Bush

And others argued

Archival: Harbour Bridge through bush

well then if we're fair dinkum, whether it's Penrith or Liverpool or Hunters Hill if we

Archival: People walking through bush

believe in the right of urban bush land to

Jack

Jack sync: remain and not to destroy everything, well then we should be consistent. So we said to the Battlers from Kelly's Bush, if you can demonstrate that it's the feeling of the people in the area and not just the fortunate few in the immediate vicinity of Kelly's Bush, we would impose a ban.

Archival: People standing around pots boiling on fire

Jack v/o: And in fact we never imposed a

Archival: Priest with people

ban if the residents couldn't back it up

Archival: People around table

with numbers of

Archival: People at demonstration.

people at a meeting.

Archival: Tilt up to people in bush

Interviewer v/o: Your members, low wage earners,

Photo: Sydney skyline

were actually prepared to forego income to protect their city. Why?

Jack v/o: Well, I think, that we learnt through our own actions, we learnt that we could be

Archival: Building under construction

fruitful in our actions and workers got a lot of pride out of that,

Archival: The Rocks area

workers got a lot of pride out of being part of saving the Rocks,

Archival: Opera House

saving the fig trees at the Opera House, Centennial Park. There was a feeling that they had a role to

Jack

Jack sync: play, that workers were not just there as chattels but they had a role to play. We also argued that we should be building buildings that are socially useful

Archival: Jack exiting city building

Jack v/o: and I think that's important that we weren't just saying stop, stop, stop this.

Interviewer v/o: What do you think was your most important individual contribution to that collective effort to make those green bans work?

Jack v/o: I think being involved in it and giving it some direction and then I suppose hitting upon the idea of

Jack

Jack sync: calling of green bans as against black bans, certainly assisted one of those rare shifts that occur where we could attract more people to it,

Archival: Building inscribed "Save Victoria Street"

Jack v/o: I mean I think that that was to me the most important thing that I've done

Archival: Children in window

personally.

Archival: Tracking shot along terraced street

But the strength of the green ban movement was its collectivism. Evidence

Archival: Police and demonstrators

shows that we were very egalitarian

Archival: Police and Jack

in the way we went about it and that to me was the proudest thing. But I think that green bans certainly

Archival: Loudspeakers - pan to demonstrators

was the highlight of my life.

Interviewer v/o: Did you have anything to overcome

Archival: Woman protestors on horseback

in yourself in taking on your very public role

Archival: Demonstrators

Jack v/o: Yeah, a lack of confidence.

Jack

Jack sync: I was reluctant to speak, I used to worry a lot about speaking and it was only through the years that I got, I gained some confidence there so I was, I was a pretty shy, even though it might be hard to believe now, I was a pretty shy person when I first became active in the union movement and it was just the hard battle of life that, that I overcame a lot of that, so it was, it was weakness in the first part. I used to stammer a lot and I used to find it difficult to express myself when I first became involved.

Interviewer v/o: But as you gained confidence, what did it feel like

Archival: Jack with film crew

to have the power to change things?

Jack v/o: Oh they were exciting times. It'd be something strange with a person if they weren't influenced by being able to stop

Archival: Jack in TV studio

the destruction of rain forests in north Queensland which was one of the things that we carried out they were terrific. You felt that you were doing something that you actually believed in

Archival: Jack in TV studio

and you were doing it with

Archival: Jack in newspaper clipping

the assistance of those

Archival : Jack in newspaper clipping

who you represented. So not only were you fighting for their wages

Archival: Jack in magazine

and conditions but you also fighting for really

Archival: Jack on Bulletin cover

good issues as well, so

Jack

Jack sync: naturally it was a certain elation in being able to do this. But at the same time your feet never left the ground too far because you always had a hostile opponent, you always had in our case a very conservative and corrupt government under Askin wanting very much to destroy us and trying to hard to do so and also developers, likewise, in tandem with those conservative politicians, so you know we had to be, we had to watch our back all the time.

Interviewer v/o: What was it that finally took you and your

Archival: Sydney Opera House steps

group out of power?

Jack v/o: I had felt for a long time

Archival: Jack with megaphone

that union officials come in to a union

Archival: Union members on steps

with all the good ideas and with desire to really improve it

Archival: Union member

but with the passage of

Jack

Jack sync: time they become more conservative, a lot of them who are slightly opportunistic often take a role with the employers and leave the union go, or they use it as a stepping stone to a cushy job somewhere or a seat in parliament

Archival: Jack enters office

Jack v/o: and I felt that if power was limited, if it could be demonstrated that a tenure of office would show that the leadership could relinquish power and go back to the rank and file and then come back again if necessary, if elected, would, would cement the feeling between the rank and file of the membership. I think this was felt by a lot of career union leaders as extremely dangerous and so they were opposed to it.

Interviewer v/o: But it was Norm Gallagher,

Archival: Norm Gallagher at picket line

from Melbourne federal secretary

Archival: Gallagher crosses picket line

of your own union who finally brought you down. How did that happen?

Jack v/o: When the developers and the Master

Jack

Jack sync: Builders who were the organisation that looked after the developers, when they couldn't break or coerce the union, when they couldn't

Archival: Protestor detained by police

Jack v/o: bribe or coerce us, they then used divisions within the union

Archival: Police detain Jack

to destroy the New South Wales leadership.

Jack sync: Have a look at this on the job...

Archival: Police detain protestors

Man # 1 sync: this is what Gallagher does...

Man #2 o/s: Collusion with the State police, the MBA.

Archival: Police climbing ladder

Jack v/o: and of course history now shows that Gallagher took secret commissions

Jack

Jack sync: and, and was, unlike us, was bribed and finally succumbed to the employer's wish that they move in and destroy the New South Wales leadership.

Archival: Demonstrators

Jack v/o: The union was de-registered and when the union got reregistered, Owens, Pringle, myself applied

Archival: BLF Protestor

for membership and we obtained membership. Gallagher thumbed his nose at us and still with the

Archival: Gallagher with others

Master Builders refused to employ us so we were locked out .

Interviewer v/o: And after Gallagher forced you out of the union you became very

Photo: Jack at microphone

busy as an environmental advocate and leader and then you suffered another personal tragedy

Photo: Michael

didn't you with the death of your son Michael.

Jack v/o: At the very same age as his mother, 22, he was

Jack

Jack sync: tragically killed in a car accident, passenger in a car. He shared my environmental concerns about many things including motor vehicles and ironically died as a passenger as a car when he was 22 and five months. Terrible set back, never got over it.

Interviewer v/o: How did you cope?

Photo: Young Michael in bed

Jack v/o: I guess I just threw myself into, into the work, I mean, I was busy before but

Photo: Young Michael at piano

I mean I've been brought up a Catholic but the

Photo: Young Michael at piano

longer I was believing in Marxism the less I believed in, you know, in religion

Jack

Jack sync: and, and so I suppose, I think there is a realistic attitude that atheists have, that you don't believe in blind faith in religion, I think there's a, it gives an atheist a strength, in my opinion anyway, it certainly did with me. That all you've got both in the death of Stephanie and Michael, all you've got are the memories and when people say well, time will heal. Well, I say, I don't want time to heal, all you've got are the memories,

Photo: Michael playing guitar

Jack v/o: all the good things that happen and all the many other things that happen, all you've got are those memories and

Photo: Michael playing guitar

I treasure those memories, and I think that's the best way to, to

Photo: Jack with Michael in pool

try and come to terms with something that will, will be with you all your life, till you die yourself.

Interviewer v/o: Jack, what do you need to be happy?

Jack v/o: Well, in the autumn of my

Jack

Jack sync: life I, I don't think I want very much. The period I've got left will be devoted to doing all I can in a fairly modest way of assisting socialists and environmentalists to come together to try and be more effective in blunting the worst excesses of corporatism which I see as very dangerous indeed.

Interviewer v/o: So for you when I

Photo: Jack by wall - "Smash Reds"

ask about personal happiness you really can only reply in terms of political change

Photo: Jack by wall " Kill Mundey"

because that's what it's become for you? Am I right?

jack v/o: Oh sure, I think that

Photo: Jack carried by police

I've never been, I think it's individualism if you just think about yourself all the time. I think it's,

Jack

Jack sync: it's the strength of like-minded people coming together that can bring about change, individuals can't of themselves.

Interviewer v/o: But people like you did come together in the

Photo: Jack with fingers in peace sign

sixties and seventies and fought successfully for ideals that have now been completely turned on their heads. What happened?

Jack v/o: Very difficult question but it

Jack

Jack sync: is true. It's difficult for those who were so heartened by all the progressive issues that were tackled in the sixties and seventies, then to find that for two decades a complete reverse with privatisation, deregulation and economic fundamentalism changing our very lives and all the goals that we had have vanished as more and more people work harder with more and more stress, with greater gap between rich and poor and all the things that are against anyone who believes in a fairer and more decent world, and I believe that that is only temporary. I think that this nightmare cannot continue and there will be a return to the sort of civilised attitudes that were there, were prominent in that period in the three quarter mark of the twentieth century.

FREEZE FRAME.

FADE TO BLACK.

FADE IN
Photo: 3 shot young Jack with friends

DISSOLVE TO:

Interviewer
ROBIN HUGHES

Editor
KIM MOODIE

Director of Photography
JOHN WHITTERON

[Music]

Photo: Jack

DISSOLVE TO:

Sound Recordist
CHRIS BOLLARD

Production Manager
JO ROSE

Sound Post Production
MICHAEL GISSING
DIGITAL CITY STUDIOS

Online Editor
ROEN DAVIS
VISUALEYES

Photo: Jack in profile

DISSOLVE TO:

Research
JO ROSE

Transcripts
CLEVERTYPES

Production Liaison
SALLY CREAGH
KAREN SKEA

Photo: Young Jack
DISSOLVE TO:

Business Affairs Manager
SALLY REGAN

With Thanks To
ABC FOOTAGE SALES
FILM AUSTRALIA FOOTAGE LIBRARY
FILM WORLD
PAT FISKE
HERITAGE FILMS
SCREENSOUND AUSTRALIA
IMAGE LIBRARY, STATE LIBRARY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
HISTORIC HOUSES TRUST
SAINT AUGUSTINE'S COLLEGE
CFMEU

Photo: Jack showing peace sign
DISSOLVE TO:

"CITY OF GREEN"
words - Denis Kevans
music - Kate Fagan
performed by Kate Fagan

Photo: Jack with police
DISSOLVE TO:

Photo: 3 shot Jack in graduation gear.
DISSOLVE TO:

Photo: Jack in room
DISSOLVE TO:

Photo: Jack at microphone
DISSOLVE TO:

Photo: Jack
DISSOLVE TO:

Photo: Jack at lectern
DISSOLVE TO:

Photo: Jack leaning on fence.

FADE TO BLACK

Produced and Directed by
ROBIN HUGHES

Executive Producer
MARK HAMLYN

Made in association with SBS TV

A Film Australia National Interest Program
© MMI

FADE IN.

Film Australia Logo