Cometh the hour, cometh the woman as Nina takes charge in Goulburn

When Nina Dillon drives past a little cemetery at Merrilla west of Goulburn on her way to town from Parkesbourne, her thoughts turn to her father, Keith Apps, who is buried there next to his twin brother, Cecil.

A farm contractor and carrier Keith was only 18 months old when his mother had died, his father had predeceased her and the twins, while raised by their grandparents, grew up depending on one another.

Soon after Cecil died in June last year Keith, almost 90, thought he should be with his lifelong twin. “So within a couple of weeks he was gone too,” Nina said.

She said her parents were ideal role models for her new role as Mayor of Goulburn Mulwaree.

Keith’s family are in Goulburn’s original pioneer register, having arrived as free settlers in 1822. Her mother Betty, came to Australia at age 14 from Yorkshire with her family, who immigrated in 1954 as 10 Pound Poms. Her family initially lived in the Bonegilla immigration camp near Albury for about a year before they moved to Junee where her father was a train driver.

Arriving in Goulburn later as a trainee nurse at Kenmore Hospital, Betty thought a good education was the only way her six children would get ahead in life. Keith believed in hard work. “Dad would have been happy for us to just go and work on the farm,” Nina said. “We have all done well because of Mum’s work.”

Growing up at Kingsvale without electricity or running water until Nina was 14 years old, the children were without a television and read a lot.

“Whether you were a girl or boy, whether you had to wash up, bring the firewood in, help round the sheep up or whatever was there, the girls were treated exactly the same as boys,” she said.

“So I never really understood when people said you did not have the opportunities as a girl because we were brought up to think we could do anything and had equal rights with boys,” Nina said. Some of her female school friends were not allowed to attend university.

With no such barrier in her family, Nina completed a science degree at the University of Canberra, had her four children and then studied externally to get degrees in accountancy and law.

When Nina first opened her accountancy practice, she was the only female with her own practice in Goulburn, determined to be as good as any of her peers.

“I thought at the time I did have to work harder,” she said. “You would go to CPA (Certified Practising Accountants) meetings and only 10 per cent would be women and 90 per cent men. Now it is almost equal, so within one generation it is equal between females and males,” she said.

For two years while working for other firms, she considered launching her own practice.

“As soon as I went out on my own there was no looking back,” she said. “It went well, lots of clients, particularly the rural clients. I thought at the time the older farmers probably wouldn’t come because they were used to having a male accountant.

“They are the most dedicated clients,” she said. “They come every year, they ring you up, tell you what they’re doing. My clients are like a family.”

Betty’s insistence on a thorough education has carried through from Nina to her four children.

Her daughter Rebecca Hunt is bookkeeper and practice manager at her mother’s firm and Nina’s son Stephen is a qualified CPA accountant there.

Her eldest son Michael works in information technology for Goulburn Mulwaree Council, where he completed a traineeship years ago, when he was 18. Her other son Robert is a scientist at the South East Local Land Services.

While important, education was only one of a number of influences from Keith and Betty Apps.

“Dad was very kind,” Nina said. “He would bring home hitchhikers who would stay for a week because these poor people didn’t have anywhere to go. It would be the hitchhiker, wife and two kids.

“So I think we have always had this social conscience,” she said. “Dad grew up in the Depression and they lived out on the farm and there would often be people wandering past. His grandparents often took in workers.”

Nina said people could fall on hard times through no fault of their own.

“The most important thing is to be kind, to have good ethics, to be honest as you can be,” she said. “At the end of the day, those (values) come from my parents.”