Jack Beale
Encyclopedia
Jack Gordon Beale AO
(17 July 1917 – 7 June 2006) was an Australia
n politician who championed the need for Australia to conserve and develop its water resources. He was also Australia's first environment minister. In his obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald
, he was described as "a visionary, one of the first to realize what would become vital issues in Australia: the potential of water resources and the limited capacity of the environment to sustain abuse." Known as the 'Water Man,' he was quoted as saying:
, a suburb of Sydney
, on 17 July 1917, the second child of Rupert Noel Beale, a stock and station agent whose business failed in a drought. His mother was Esther Anderina Green from New Zealand
. He attended state schools in rural Scone
and the industrial city of Newcastle
, and earned an honors diploma in mechanical engineering from Sydney Technical College. He joined the New South Wales Department of Public Works in 1936, where he saw the irrigation and energy potential of the state's rivers and developed a passion which was to last a lifetime for water conservation
and irrigation. At age 48 he earned a Masters of Engineering degree from the University of New South Wales
with a thesis on water irrigation efficiency.
in the New South Wales state parliament in 1941. After Rupert Beale's death in 1942, Jack Beale ran in the by-election for his father's electorate, South Coast
, winning as an independent and becoming at the age of 25 the youngest member of the NSW parliament. He served in parliament for 31 years and won three elections as an independent and 8 as a member of the Liberal Party. He was an independent or in opposition for 22 consecutive years of his parliamentary career, and was a cabinet minister in the Askin
government for the last nine 9 years. When Askin became Premier in 1965, he offered Jack Beale the Minister of Public Works portfolio, which ranked fifth in state protocol. He declined the position and asked for the Minister for Conservation portfolio, which ranked thirteenth, but which was responsible for the state's water, soil and forests and which interested him more. He embarked on a program to develop the state's water resources, initiating comprehensive river valley surveys and an infrastructure program constructing new dams and weirs. While his primary motivation was to support farmers, he also directed water releases from state dams to preserve the ecology of the Macquarie Marshes Nature Reserve
.
1n 1971 he became NSW Minister for Environmental Control and was Australia's first environment minister. He established the state's Pollution Control Commission, which later became the Environmental Protection Authority. Making issues such as the water quality of Sydney Harbor a priority, he sponsored early legislation relating to clean air, clean water, air pollution control and waste disposal.
He was also Minister assisting the Premier and Treasurer and participated in negotiations with the federal government on revenue sharing. After falling out with Askin, he resigned from parliament in October 1973, one month before a state election. The Liberal Party
lost the seat.
He also initiated the private power industry in New South Wales. Starting in 1987, in his 70s, he proposed first to the Unsworth
and then the Greiner
governments that he develop privately-owned and operated hydroelectric power stations at 13 state dams. After fighting bureaucratic opposition and the entrenched interest of the monopoly Electricity Commission, he eventually won a public tender to establish power stations at three dams, Burrendong
, Copeton
and Glenbawn
(near Scone where he had lived as a child). He produced his first electricity in 1995 when he was 78.
, Venezuela
, the Philippines
and Sri Lanka
. He was a delegate to the Water for Peace Conference in Washington in 1967 and to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
in Stockholm in 1972.
in 2001. He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Australian National University
and an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of New South Wales. The Australian National University established a Jack Beale Chair of Water Resources and the University of New South Wales established an annual Jack Beale Lecture on the Global Environment.
Jack Beale married (1) Pamela June Anne Wallis, daughter of David Lindsay Wallis and Ella Gwendoline Holbrook, in 1942 and (2) Stephania Toth-Dobranski, a Polish immigrant to Australia, in 1965.
He had two sons with Pamela Wallis, David John Beale, an engineer, and Christopher William Beale, who led the banking industry in the development of the Equator Principles
, a process for handling environmental risk in development projects.
Jack Beale died in the Sydney suburb of Elizabeth Bay
in 2006 at the age of 89.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
(17 July 1917 – 7 June 2006) was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n politician who championed the need for Australia to conserve and develop its water resources. He was also Australia's first environment minister. In his obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
, he was described as "a visionary, one of the first to realize what would become vital issues in Australia: the potential of water resources and the limited capacity of the environment to sustain abuse." Known as the 'Water Man,' he was quoted as saying:
Most of Australia's rivers flow relatively short distances to the sea. As early as 1963, Jack Beale called for water from Australia's rivers to be diverted to the arid inland.
"Australia is the lowest, flattest, hottest and driest continent on the earth and we have to manage it accordingly."
Early life and education
Jack Beale was born in ManlyManly, New South Wales
Manly is a suburb of northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Manly is located 17 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre of the local government area of Manly Council, in the Northern Beaches region.-History:Manly was named...
, a suburb of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, on 17 July 1917, the second child of Rupert Noel Beale, a stock and station agent whose business failed in a drought. His mother was Esther Anderina Green from New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. He attended state schools in rural Scone
Scone, New South Wales
Scone is a town in the Upper Hunter Shire in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Australia. At the 2006 census, Scone had a population of 4,624 people. It is located on the New England Highway north of Muswellbrook about 270 kilometres north of Sydney, and is part of the Hunter and Upper...
and the industrial city of Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
, and earned an honors diploma in mechanical engineering from Sydney Technical College. He joined the New South Wales Department of Public Works in 1936, where he saw the irrigation and energy potential of the state's rivers and developed a passion which was to last a lifetime for water conservation
Water conservation
Water conservation refers to reducing the usage of water and recycling of waste water for different purposes such as cleaning, manufacturing, and agricultural irrigation.- Water conservation :Water conservation can be defined as:...
and irrigation. At age 48 he earned a Masters of Engineering degree from the University of New South Wales
University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
with a thesis on water irrigation efficiency.
Political career
Jack Beale's father Rupert was elected a Member of the Legislative AssemblyNew South Wales Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...
in the New South Wales state parliament in 1941. After Rupert Beale's death in 1942, Jack Beale ran in the by-election for his father's electorate, South Coast
Electoral district of South Coast
South Coast is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales. It is represented by Shelley Hancock of the Liberal Party of Australia.-Members for South Coast:-Election results:...
, winning as an independent and becoming at the age of 25 the youngest member of the NSW parliament. He served in parliament for 31 years and won three elections as an independent and 8 as a member of the Liberal Party. He was an independent or in opposition for 22 consecutive years of his parliamentary career, and was a cabinet minister in the Askin
Robert Askin
Sir Robert William Askin GCMG, was an Australian politician and the 32nd Premier of New South Wales from 1965 to 1975, the first representing the Liberal Party of Australia. He was born in 1907 as Robin William Askin, but always disliked his first name and changed it by deed poll in 1971...
government for the last nine 9 years. When Askin became Premier in 1965, he offered Jack Beale the Minister of Public Works portfolio, which ranked fifth in state protocol. He declined the position and asked for the Minister for Conservation portfolio, which ranked thirteenth, but which was responsible for the state's water, soil and forests and which interested him more. He embarked on a program to develop the state's water resources, initiating comprehensive river valley surveys and an infrastructure program constructing new dams and weirs. While his primary motivation was to support farmers, he also directed water releases from state dams to preserve the ecology of the Macquarie Marshes Nature Reserve
Macquarie Marshes Nature Reserve
The Macquarie Marshes Nature Reserve is located in the Macquarie Marshes, a region along the lower Macquarie River in northwestern New South Wales, Australia, about 600 km northwest of Sydney. The marshes are created by irregular flooding of the flat lands along the river...
.
1n 1971 he became NSW Minister for Environmental Control and was Australia's first environment minister. He established the state's Pollution Control Commission, which later became the Environmental Protection Authority. Making issues such as the water quality of Sydney Harbor a priority, he sponsored early legislation relating to clean air, clean water, air pollution control and waste disposal.
He was also Minister assisting the Premier and Treasurer and participated in negotiations with the federal government on revenue sharing. After falling out with Askin, he resigned from parliament in October 1973, one month before a state election. The Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
lost the seat.
Business Life
After working as a cadet engineer at the NSW Public Works department, Jack Beale worked as an engineer at Shell Australia and later as a consulting engineer. An energetic man who found life as a parliamentary backbencher too quiet, he started during his parliamentary career over 20 small businesses, including Springs Pty. Ltd. which manufactured springs and paperclips and Rain Spray Sprinklers Pty. Ltd. which manufactured irrigation equipment. He also served as non-executive chairman of Talcott Factors Limited, a listed finance company. When he became a cabinet minister he was forced to give up his business interests but after leaving politics he plunged back into his irrigation business, which he later sold it to James Hardie Limited.He also initiated the private power industry in New South Wales. Starting in 1987, in his 70s, he proposed first to the Unsworth
Barry Unsworth
Barry Unsworth is a British novelist who is known for novels with historical themes. He has published 15 novels, and has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times, winning once for the 1992 novel Sacred Hunger....
and then the Greiner
Nick Greiner
Nicholas "Nick" Frank Hugo Greiner AC, is an Australian businessman and former politician. He was the 37th Premier New South Wales from 1988 to 1992. He was Leader of the New South Wales Division of the Liberal Party from 1983 to 1992 and Leader of the Opposition from 1983 to 1988. He is married...
governments that he develop privately-owned and operated hydroelectric power stations at 13 state dams. After fighting bureaucratic opposition and the entrenched interest of the monopoly Electricity Commission, he eventually won a public tender to establish power stations at three dams, Burrendong
Burrendong Dam
Burrendong Dam is a Rock-fill dam with a clay core across the Macquarie River upstream of Wellington in New South Wales, Australia.The dam impounds Lake Burrendong and is filled by the waters from the Macquarie and Cudgegong rivers....
, Copeton
Copeton Dam
Copeton Dam is a 113 metres high, earth and rock fill embankment dam on the Gwydir River near Inverell, New South Wales, Australia. The dam was built by the New South Wales Water Conservation & Irrigation Commission and the Department of Water Resources to supply water for irrigation...
and Glenbawn
Glenbawn Dam
Glenbawn Dam is a major dam and reservoir on the Hunter River in New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest earth-filled dam in Australia....
(near Scone where he had lived as a child). He produced his first electricity in 1995 when he was 78.
Non Profit Life
In 1955, Jack Beale founded the Water Research Foundation of Australia to fund research into the development and control of Australia's water resources, and was its chairman for 30 years. From 1974 to 1977 he was an adviser to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and undertook advisory missions to ThailandThailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. He was a delegate to the Water for Peace Conference in Washington in 1967 and to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was an international conference convened under United Nations auspices held in Stockholm, Sweden from June 5–16, 1972...
in Stockholm in 1972.
Honours
Jack Beale was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1999, and the Centenary MedalCentenary Medal
The Centenary Medal is an award created by the Australian Government in 2001. It was established to commemorate the Centenary of Federation of Australia and to honour people who have made a contribution to Australian society or government...
in 2001. He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
and an Honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of New South Wales. The Australian National University established a Jack Beale Chair of Water Resources and the University of New South Wales established an annual Jack Beale Lecture on the Global Environment.
Family
Jack Beale had two siblings: Peggy Willoughby Beale, who married Lloyd Miller of Gerringong, NSW, and William Sugden Beale, who married Judith Edgell of Cowra, NSW.Jack Beale married (1) Pamela June Anne Wallis, daughter of David Lindsay Wallis and Ella Gwendoline Holbrook, in 1942 and (2) Stephania Toth-Dobranski, a Polish immigrant to Australia, in 1965.
He had two sons with Pamela Wallis, David John Beale, an engineer, and Christopher William Beale, who led the banking industry in the development of the Equator Principles
Equator Principles
The Equator Principles are a voluntary set of standards for determining, assessing and managing social and environmental risk in project financing....
, a process for handling environmental risk in development projects.
Jack Beale died in the Sydney suburb of Elizabeth Bay
Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales
Elizabeth Bay is a harbourside suburb in eastern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Elizabeth Bay is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney....
in 2006 at the age of 89.