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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-02 Daily Xml
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CULLEN, PROF. P.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:32): I move:

That the Legislative Council notes with sadness the recent passing of Professor Peter Cullen and acknowledges the great contribution he made to South Australia.

Professor Peter Cullen AO passed away on 13 March 2008 in Canberra aged 65. Professor Cullen left an enormous legacy. As South Australians we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude, and we owe that gratitude for three main things: first, his advocacy for the River Murray; secondly, his contribution to public debate, particularly on water issues; and, thirdly, for his time as a Thinker in Residence in South Australia in 2004.

According to John Williams, who delivered the eulogy at his service, Peter started his career as a science teacher, and he always 'had his feet on the ground and mud on his boots'. He was an agricultural scientist. He spent time as a young man plodding around irrigation farms. He graduated in agricultural science from the University of Melbourne, and his areas of expertise quickly became water reform, fresh water ecology, environmental flows and catchment management.

Peter taught at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (later the University of Canberra) where he became founding Chief Executive of the CRC for Fresh Water Ecology from 1992 to 2002. He was a visiting fellow at the CSIRO Land and Water. Probably, Peter Cullen is best known to us as a founding member and leader of and spokesperson for the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, where his quiet wisdom and expertise influenced many.

The Wentworth group was highly influential in focusing government policy on Australia's water crisis, especially through its Murray-Darling Basin Blueprint for a Living Catchment. Peter Cullen had an all too rare ability to be able to explain concepts clearly, to work with the media and to help ordinary people make sense of the water debate. He did this with great wit, humour and insight.

Peter's list of accomplishments and achievements was immense. Peter was also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and a member of both the International Water Academy and the International Ecology Institute. He was a past president of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) where he drove successful initiatives such as 'Science meets Parliament'.

Peter Cullen was a commissioner to the National Water Commission, Chair of the Victorian Water Trust Advisory Council, a member of the Natural Heritage Trust Advisory Committee and a Director of Land and Water Australia. He was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Environmentalist of the Year in 2001 for his work on the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. Peter Cullen was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2004 for services to fresh water ecology. He was awarded the Naumann-Thienemann Medal from the International Limnology Society 2004 for his exemplary scientific leadership.

In these remarks I mainly want to refer to Peter's role as a Thinker in Residence in South Australia—a role that he took up in 2004. I think it was an inspired choice of the Premier's to involve Peter in that program. The focus of Professor Peter Cullen's residency was the future of the River Murray and a sustainable future for Adelaide's water supply. However, it went beyond just water to address broader resource management issues. His final report, Water Challenges for South Australia in the 21st Century, should be compulsory reading for all South Australian politicians. His recommendations were simple and they were timely. He told us, 'Don't look upstream for your salvation. You need to get on and solve problems yourself.' This was a hard message for those of us who are used to blaming other states for the dire state of the Murray.

He emphasised the importance of all sources of water, including groundwater and the protection of the Mount Lofty Ranges. I will refer briefly to some parts of his report, which contains 18 recommendations for action. All 18 recommendations were important, but seven were seen as priorities. The four areas were, first, to understand and protect the sources of water. These include addressing flow and salinity issues in the River Murray and controlling land use in the hill catchment. The second area was to use water efficiently in urban and rural communities to reduce demands on this scarce and precious resource. This will involve further development of water entitlements and a water market.

The third area is 'to develop and learn how to use alternative sources of water. [Including] recycling, using stormwater and developing capability for desalination of seawater and saline groundwater'. He says, in relation to desalination:

These are less urgent, but they will take time, so a start should be made.

The fourth area is 'to develop the capacity of rural communities to live sustainably in their catchments by providing appropriate support to the new natural resources management boards'.

What I would call on the government to do is to collectively get out your copies of Peter Cullen's Thinker in Residence report for 2004 and let us have another look at implementing those recommendations. Some of the responses to his death have focused on the status that he held in the water debate in Australia. West Australian Greens senator, Rachel Siewert, said that he was a conservation giant and a great man. She said:

Peter Cullen was a giant in terms of his contribution to natural resource management and water management in Australia. I was so looking forward to his contribution to the ongoing debate on the Murray River…Australia has lost a great man.

Fellow water expert and Wentworth Group scientist Mike Young said Professor Cullen was able to help the average person understand the importance of water management. To quote Mike Young:

A big person with big ideas, big ideas that were easy to understand. Peter understood, better than most, that to change policy you had to change the way people thought. He instinctively knew how to explain water science and water policy options to the young and to the old. Carting his big, joyful frame around him and using the national water initiative as his template, Peter believed that Australia could excel in water management. He sensed that now was the time to get the fundamentals right. The legacy of his ideas will endure.

Long-time friend and chairman of the Barton Group on sustainable water use, Professor Paul Perkins, said:

The nation has lost a great man. We know him most over the last two decades for water, fresh water ecology, but he had a lifetime in natural resource management. He towered above everything. He was a big man in intellect, in size, in appetite for new things.

Peter Cullen called for sustainability and for new ethics to confront water scarcity. Three of his principles were:

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (I have heard that one somewhere before.)

2. Do not covet your neighbour's water.

3. Maintain the health of our aquatic ecosystems for all other users are dependent on this health.

I am grateful to Professor Mike Young, who when I rang him the other day pointed me to his website, where he has a series of little documents that he calls droplets. His droplet number 11, from 16 March, is entitled 'Cullenisms: Thinking about water', and he has a page or more of quotes from Peter Cullen. I will not go through all of those, but I will go through a couple of things that Peter said. Before I do that, I will refer to one more eulogy of Peter, and that is from another South Australian, Peter Cosier, another member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. Peter Cosier says that Peter Cullen was:

...a man of towering physical presence, big ideas and a wicked sense of humour. Most people know Peter Cullen as the great professor, the expert debating water reform, a national water commissioner, a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

He was a big man in every sense of the word. He was comfortable with prime ministers and premiers, scientists, journalists, irrigators, farmers, a man of great courage who could never be bought or intimidated, always cool under pressure, always respectful.

He had an enormous capacity for work, an enormous generosity to people and the capacity to cut through the noise and to focus. But the true mark of Peter Cullen is his humanity. He loved his life and he loved people. He is adored by his family and is adored by his friends.

I quote some of Peter Cullen's words—his reflections on the role of government:

While politicians like to blame other levels of government, the reality is that our politicians reflect what we as a community are telling them. We are all responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.

He also said:

Communities must demand that political leaders take control and responsibility for putting in place management regimes that benefit all of the community not just a favoured few.

One final thing I would point out in terms of these quotes from Peter Cullen was his comments on climate change, as follows:

It is no longer prudent to believe this is a drought that is about to break. We are entering a tough new world, and we have little in our past experience to help us make smart decisions.

In conclusion, I point out that Peter Cullen's legacy for South Australia is enduring. His Water Challenges report has stood the test of time: only a few years old but still a vital document for all of us to understand. He has been influential in governments, academic circles and, in fact, throughout the community. South Australia has indeed lost a friend and we have lost some wise counsel, and he will be sorely missed, but I am confident that Professor Peter Cullen's legacy will live on in South Australia.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J. Gazzola.

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