The Story of John Dainton’s Role in MENDING THE GOULBURN BROKEN by John Northage Funding for this story This story was prepared with assistance from a Community Fellowship from Land & Water Australia, funded by the Dara and Poola Foundations. The mission of Land & Water Australia was to provide national leadership in generating knowledge, inform debate and inspire innovation and action in sustainable resource management. The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority provided additional financial and administrative support. John Dainton, John Northage and the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority would also like to especially acknowledge and thank Rod McLennan for his significant contribution to this project. The Victorian Government, the Australian Government and the regional community funded most projects described in this story. © Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority 2014 This publication is copyright. No part may be reproduced by any process except in accordance with the provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968. Contact Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority for all permission requests. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry The Story of John Dainton’s Role in Mending the Goulburn Broken ISBN 978-1-876600-00-6 Includes bibliographical references. Natural resources – Australia – Goulburn Broken – Dainton – Management Environmental management – Australia Salinity – Shepparton – Australia Northage, J.A. Published by Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority 168 Welsford St (PO Box 1752), Shepparton VIC 3632, Australia Telephone: +61 3 5822 7700 Email: [email protected] Website: www.gbcma.vic.gov.au Printed on recycled paper. Disclaimer This publication may of assistance to you but the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority and its employees do not guarantee that the publication is without flaw of any kind or is wholly appropriate for your particular purposes and therefore disclaims all liability for any error, loss or other consequences which may arise from reliance on any information in this publication. Accessibility This document is also available in PDF format on the internet at www.gbcma.vic.gov.au The Story of John Dainton’s Role in MENDING THE GOULBURN BROKEN by John Northage Based on interviews and research undertaken between 2003 and 2008. The Story of John Dainton’s Role in Mending the Goulburn Broken Foreword Managing Australia’s I first met John Dainton about thirty years ago when environment and working out I was working as a young forester at Shepparton in how to produce our food, fibre the Goulburn Valley region of north central Victoria. and energy more sustainably One of my jobs was trying to encourage and support is a big job — far too big farmers to plant more native trees. John was already for individual landholders, involved with the Salinity Pilot Program, and he industries or communities. It is was later to chair its Advisory Committee, among a job for all of us. How well we many other NRM leadership roles in the Goulburn do it impacts on us all. So we expect governments to Valley and beyond. John’s quiet authority and the take it seriously; we expect legislation to be enacted deep and widespread respect he enjoyed across and government agencies to be responsible for its the community was a wonderful asset for every implementation; we expect research into problems organisation and group he was involved with. In and their solutions; we expect wise policies and addition to his NRM roles, John was variously Director, funding programs to implement them; we expect Deputy Chair and Chairman of Ibis Milk Products, investment in infrastructure; we expect that a range Bonlac Foods, Goulburn-Murray Water, the Victorian of organisations, public and private, will play different Water Association and the Regional Development roles; we expect that science and technology will Board. This industry leadership experience gave continually improve our individual and collective John a wonderful contact network in industry and know-how to manage Australia’s environment. government, and also empathy and credibility with his fellow landholders and primary producers in the These are expectations of ‘the system’ – the region and beyond. institutions, policy processes and management regimes that both constrain and enable the decisions In particular through his leadership of the Goulburn and actions of people as we go about our daily Broken Catchment and Land Protection Board lives. They are profoundly pervasive and influential (later to become the Goulburn Broken Catchment in shaping the way resources and environments are Management Authority), and in more recent years managed in Australia. his work with the University of the Third Age, John has been instrumental in attracting expertise and But while systems make things possible, people make resources to his region to help lead the community them happen. through the development and implementation of This is the story of John Dainton, an outstanding some of Australia’s most comprehensive land and community leader in natural resource management water management plans. Along with other regional (NRM), and a great example of how committed people leaders, John has created a lasting legacy in the can make things happen. communities and landscapes of the Goulburn Broken Catchment, of which he should be rightly proud. 2 John Dainton’s story was assisted through a Community Fellowship from Land & Water Australia, funded by a generous grant from the Dara and Poola Foundations. These modest fellowships were about documenting the extraordinary achievements in community leadership of many ‘ordinary’ people. John Dainton’s is a remarkable story, but fortunately for Australia, it is more exemplary than unique. Over the last thirty years I have met many people working in landcare and natural resource management who have played very important leadership roles in their own communities and industries, spanning the occasionally wide gulf between governments and communities, and helping to navigate a path forward that is able to get us to where society needs us to go, without alienating or leaving too many people behind. Without leaders like John Dainton, Australia’s management of its rural landscapes, natural heritage and natural resources would be immeasurably the poorer. This fine biography by John Northage is testament to just how much can be achieved and influenced by the sustained efforts of one quietly effective community leader. It deserves to be widely read – not just by people interested in environmental policy and sustainability, but by anyone interested in the future of Australia. Professor Andrew Campbell Head, School of Environment, Charles Darwin University March 2014 (Executive Director, Land & Water Australia, 2000-2006) 3 The Story of John Dainton’s Role in Mending the Goulburn Broken Preface Since the 1970s I have studied, I decided to include significant levels of detail in some designed and managed regional parts of the document, hoping to make it a more organisations in various parts of comprehensive resource so that researchers could Australia. get to the bottom of issues easier. A task remains for someone else to prepare an abridged “coffee-table” From the Albury-Wodonga version appropriate for wide readership. Growth Centre project of the mid 1970s to resource John Dainton’s story about how strong personal values developments in the Bowen and capacity have flowed through to benefit the Basin, Hunter Region and the Latrobe Valley in later regional community has implications for all Australians. I years, I have seen government agencies, private sector was certainly inspired to go way beyond the initial brief, corporations and community bodies working together interrogating far more documents and interviewing to address extraordinary challenges, but with varying many more people than originally intended. results. I have learnt that a crucial ingredient for success is the Acknowledgements presence or absence of effective leaders: dedicated and Understandably, the most significant personal capable champions of the regional goal. contribution to this story was made by John Dainton, Of all the scenarios I encountered, one especially stood both by way of sharing his recollections and his later out – the Goulburn Broken catchment. It was without checks of the draft. Bill O’Kane, Chief Executive Officer equal for its exemplary mix of quality decision-making, of the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management community involvement and the performance of its Authority (until 2009), provided similar assistance. Bill Catchment Management Authority and predecessors. was able to draw on his experience of service since 1986 Community leaders like Penny Jones, Pam Robinson, in the successive catchment organisations responsible Dianne McPherson, Angus Howell, Tom Perry, Jeremy for salinity control and natural resource management in Gaylard, and, of course, John Dainton, were critical to the Catchment. the process. A feature of the considerable workload associated with While John Dainton may not have fitted the stereotype the collection of personal anecdotes and insights was of a charismatic leader, his acumen, impressive the enthusiasm and helpfulness of the community commitment, integrity, eclecticism and status as a leaders, public servants and other contemporaries of proven champion for the region, placed him as the John Dainton who were contacted. preeminent regional leader of his time. I gratefully acknowledge