Draft:Jude Munro

• Comment: Not enough independent, significant coverage. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 06:42, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

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Jude Munro is the former chief executive of Australia’s largest local government area, the City of Brisbane, a position she held for 10 years. At age 39, she was one of the first women ever appointed to head up a local government area, the City of St Kilda. Since 2010, Munro has forged a career as a Non-Executive Director and consultant, with specialties in planning, infrastructure, aviation, tourism, community services and property. She is also a long-term and pioneering campaigner for LGBTIQ+ rights in Australia. She lives in Melbourne with Louise Kummrow, her partner of 39 years.

Early Life

Munro was born in Melbourne in August 1951, one of two daughters to John Munro and Alva Sproule. She grew up in the working class suburb of Port Melbourne with her Salvation Army parents and sister Barbara.

Munro attended Nott Street Primary School and Mac. Robertson Secondary Girls High School (1965-1969), where Jude was an active member of the student leadership, eventually becoming a prefect and Oreads House Captain.

Attending the University of Melbourne (1970-1975), Munro completed a Bachelor of Arts, (Political Science) where she studied Politics and Philosophy. She became involved in student politics and co-founded the Gay Liberation Front in Melbourne in 1972.

Munro later completed a Graduate Diploma of Public Policy at University of Melbourne and a Graduate Diploma of Business Administration at Swinburne Institute of Technology both in 1987.

Career

Munro commenced working with Australian Union of Students in 1976 and the three Victorian teacher unions (co-funded by the three which existed at the time) where built a network of 1000 women teachers, she led campaigns to support girls through the curriculum, and career choices as well as for flexible work arrangements for teachers achieving the rights to permanent part-time work, and seven years family leave for male and female teachers.

Munro then went on to join the Victorian Public Service in 1980 as a regional social planner, leaving Community Services Victoria 11 years later as a senior executive.

In 1990, Munro was appointed as the CEO of the City of St Kilda becoming one of the first women in Australia appointed to head up a local council. She steered the council through a politically tumultuous period of State Government amalgamation and reform. Whilst the elected council fought against the proposed amalgamations, Munro ensured the organisation effectively delivered services to its community. In 1994, she was appointed interim CEO of the newly amalgamated and created City of Moreland. During her period as CEO, there were four mayors at the City of St Kilda: 1990 Melanie Eagle; 1991 John Callahan; 1992 Dr John Spierings and 1993 Tim Costello. In 1994-1997, Munro served three years as a Divisional Manager at the City of Brisbane.

In 1997-2000 she was appointed as CEO of the City of Adelaide, where again she was the first female CEO of that city.

While in the role of CEO Munro was also Director of the Adelaide Convention and Tourism Authority 1997 – 2000, and a member of the Adelaide City Marketing Authority from 1997 to 2000 and member of the South Australian 7th National Masters Games Board from 1997 to 2000. She served under one lord mayor, Dr Jane Lomax-Smith.

In 2000, Munro returned as CEO of Brisbane City Council, the largest local government area in Australia, becoming once again, the first female CEO of that city. During Munro’s decade of leading the council, it had an annual budget of $2.6 billion and more than 9000 employees, delivering services to 1.2 million people. In addition to traditional local government services, the council at the time ran water and sewerage services, and the bus and ferry services for Brisbane. It also delivers major infrastructure projects and during Munro’s decade of leadership, she oversaw the $2.7 billion Clem7 Tunnel Public Private Partnership and was the steering committee chair for the feasibility of the Airport Link, the Green Bridge and the Go-Between Bridge.

Munro became deeply immersed in Brisbane as part of her role and became heavily involved across the arts, infrastructure and business of the city, including being the:

• Director, Brisbane Institute 2000 - 2008:
• Director, Brisbane River Festival 2000 - 2005
• Member, Holding Entity Advisory Board, Brisbane City Council 2000 - 2004
• Director, City of Brisbane Airport Corporation 2001 - 2006
• Director, Australia Trade Coast 2002 - 2010
• Chair, National Local Government Alcohol and Drug Committee 2002 - 2010
• Director, United Way Queensland 2003 - 2008
• Director, International River Foundation 2004 - 2008
• Director, City of Brisbane Investment Corporation 2008 - 2010
• Director, Translink Transit Authority, Queensland Government 2007 - 2010
  

Between 2001 and 2005, Munro was also Queensland President of the Institute of Public Administration Queensland . During her tenure there was a tripling of IPAA’s membership and a doubling of revenue.

The length of her tenure at Brisbane City Council meant Munro worked under three Lord Mayors, Labor's Jim Soorley and Tim Quinn, and the at times controversial Liberal National Party's Campbell Newman, who went on to become Queensland Premier. Cr Newman described Munro as "one of Australia's most outstanding public servants."

Recognition of her work at Brisbane City Council and of her broader contribution to the state of Queensland came through being awarded the keys to the City of Brisbane in 2010 in recognition of her service and was awarded the IPAA Queensland Governance Award for excellence in the public sector.

Munro was awarded an Order of Australia Award, receiving an AO in 2010 for her services to the City of Brisbane, and local government nationally.

Later Career

Since leaving Brisbane City Council, Munro has remained extremely active, establishing her own successful consulting business, Jude Munro and Associates as well as working as a non-executive director. Munro’s current board positions include:

• Chair, Newcastle Airport, August 2023 to present
• Director, Royal Children's Hospital, July 2022 to present
• Chair, Uniting Tasmania, March 2020 to present
• Chair, Victoria Planning Authority, January 2017 to present.
  

Previous board positions have included:

• Chair, Board, Queensland Urban Utilities Queensland Urban Utilities 2010 - 2012
• Chair, Establishment Committee, Queensland Urban UtilitiesQueensland Urban Utilities 2009 - 2012
• Director, Air Services Australia 2010 - 2013
• Director, SunCentral Maroochydore 2015-2019
• Director of Uniting Care Queensland 2010-2016
• Member, Sunshine Coast Regional Economic Board, Feb 2014 - June 2015
• Chair, Logan Leadership Team, 2013 - 2016
• Chair, Victoria Pride Centre, October 2016 to April 2021
• Non-Executive Director, Metro Tasmania, July 2015 to November 2022
• Deputy Chair, Newcastle Airport July 2015 to August 2023
  

Munro has continued to play an important role as a senior and trusted advisor to governments at all levels. She was a member of the Queensland Director Generals Performance Review Panel in 2014, she was also a panel member of the Commission of Inquiry into the, City of Geelong, Jan - March 2016 , appointed at the request of the Minister for Local Government the Hon Natalie Hutchins MP following allegations of serious bullying. The report resulted in the appointment of administrators to Geelong City Council.

She was a member of the Independent Panel to Reform Local Government in NSW, 2012 -13, which looked at the structure and systems of local government in that state, providing an integrated package of measures, detailed in 65 recommendations.

Munro was also a member of the COAG Taskforce on Australian Capital Cities, 2011- 2012, which reviewed all metro planning systems across Australia. She was part of the Queensland State Government review into Infrastructure Charges Taskforce, a Member of the Advisory Council of the Australian National Preventative Health Agency between 2012 – 2014. At the City of Melbourne, Munro was Chair of the Panel Review into Organisational Capability, May 2015 as well as Chair of the CEO Employment Matters Committee which has seen her oversighting the management of recent events such as the resignation of CEO Justin Haney.

She helped co-ordinate the Lockyer Valley Regional Council’s community recovery effort in 2011 post the tragic flooding of Grantham in which 12 lives were lost. She negotiated the relocation of residents to live on higher ground .

She is a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

Gay Activism

While being brought up in an active and strict Salvation Army family, Munro walked away from the faith of her parents as it did not accept homosexuality.

She recounts sitting in a Salvation Army seminar for young people in the mid-1960s at the age of 14 listening to an elder expounding on the evils of homosexuality. “It was the first time I had really heard that, and I realised that he was talking about me, and if that's what they think, then I'm not going to have anything more to do with them.”

Munro initially tried to join the Daughters of Bilitis but was rejected as they required members to be over 21 years of age. Taking matters into her own hands, she decided to produce her own protest pamphlet calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality which she distributed at Flinders Street Station. ‘I couldn't understand why as a lesbian, why what I felt was so much part of me, and such a natural feeling, why it was not recognised by society,’ she says.

In 1972, while at the University of Melbourne, Munro became a founding member of Melbourne Gay Liberation Front chairing their first meeting. Future prominent gay activists, Dennis Altman and Peter McEwan were there, while Barb Creed joined a little later. The group organised events, held dances, collected money, ran consciousness-raising groups, arranged demonstrations, and held regular Friday night meetings.

Munro continued her activism while working with the teachers unions, being heavily involved with the publication of the Young, Gay and Proud publication, supported by the three Victorian teachers unions, and was also one of the 300 people who marched in the first Sydney Mardi Gras march in 1978, where 103 people were arrested.

In 1987, she was given the job of working up a policy to support clients of Community Services Victoria who had contracted HIV/AIDS.

Victorian Pride Centre

Following her retirement from the City of Brisbane, Munro once again became active in the Pride movement, becoming the inaugural chair of the Victorian Pride Centre (VPC) , the first centre of its kind in Australia, and had lead responsibility for the Business Case, defining the project scope, parameters and required policy outcome. The Board led the management of stakeholder relations and dealing with the expectations and requirements of key stakeholders within the LGBTIQ+ community.”

Her involvement in the VPC was extensive and pivotal, getting the members of the voluntary Board to take on roles to ensure the building was built, funded, communicated, tenanted. The VPC was not properly staffed for a three year period. In May 2021, Munro stepped down as inaugural Chair of the VPC, just before the building was opened. She continues to be involved through the Victorian Pride Fund.
“Coming out is crucial to our acceptance of ourselves and our own self-confidence as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, trans and intersex people,” she said. “Being out there, including as a Pride Centre, is the opposite of us being hidden. A Pride Centre underpins society’s acceptance of its own diversity. It lies at the heart of a cohesive society.”

Honours

In June 2010, Munro was honoured on the Queen’s Birthday list with an Officer of the Order of Australia, for distinguished service to local government, particularly Brisbane City Council, and to the community through contributions to business, professional development and philanthropic organisations. There only 140 awarded each year.

She is Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (appointed 2004) and is an honorary National Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia, and received the Raymond J Peck award from the UDIA in Victoria in 2020.

She was also announced as the Globe LGBTIQ Person of the Year.

When she was named one of Google and Deloitte’s 50 Outstanding LGBTI Leaders of 2018, Munro said her greatest role model was her mother, who “showed me the value of a life of service, the importance of hard work and that every individual matters”.