Paul Stephenson with then Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson at the opening of a facility for people with disabilities in 2012. Photo: Veolia Mulwaree Trust.
Goulburn’s continued growth is of much interest to Paul Stephenson.
So far this year plans for more than 200 residential lots have been lodged for approval, mostly in the new suburbs of the city.
Even though he no longer lives in the city, the former mayor of Goulburn Mulwaree keeps tabs on developments and sees the irony of people moving into new homes with two and sometimes three bathrooms.
Paul remembers 17 years ago, when residential growth was unlikely for a city at risk of running out of water at the height of the millennium drought, Goulburn was forced to cut its water consumption from 13 megalitres a day to five megalitres.
“People were pulling their flowers out of the ground, it was just terrible,” Paul said.
“So I went where I could to try and find some money,” he said, recalling his proposal for a pipeline to Sydney’s water supply.
“We (the city) had about $10 million of our own, which was nothing compared to what was needed.”
By then he had become a polarising figure in public life and his campaign for water security was not without its critics in Goulburn.
People felt he was overreaching as photographs and news footage kept appearing of him on the parched and cracked mud bottom of Pejar Dam, creating a potent image of Goulburn’s precarious reservoirs.
Paul with a catch of red emperor fish at Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria in 2007. After helping the local Indigenous community form their own council, he became a regular visitor to the island. Photo: Stephenson family.
But the city was fast approaching such a dire lack of water, modelling was done on trucking in water, or bringing it in by train.
Paul’s unrelenting pleas and raising Goulburn’s worsening outlook were having the desired impact on NSW and federal governments. He stepped up lobbying, becoming a regular on BBC Radio drive-time talking about the city in Australia about to run dry. His media skills had been formidable in the region and state, now he was reaching across the world.
Finally, the Highland Source Project, an 81 km pipeline from Wingecarribee Reservoir to Goulburn, was opened in 2011.
“There was never any thought of the number of people who were going to be there (Goulburn) as there are now,” Paul said.
“I asked a fellow there a few months ago (about the new houses) and he said every one of them has at least two bathrooms, maybe three.”
After a trip around Australia in 2015, Paul and his wife Sue retired in Khancoban, a quiet village built for workers on the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme.
European trees which add charm to the village 13 km from the Victorian border are a legacy of the immigrant workers as are eight power stations, 16 major dams, aqueducts and interconnected tunnels in the visionary Snowy scheme.
Paul and trustee John Reynolds with resident Joyce Ings at the opening of a refurbished unit at the Goulburn Legacy Lodge in 2007. Photo: Veolia Mulwaree Trust.
Paul’s legacy is the Highlands Source pipeline and the Veolia Mulwaree Trust he established during his time as Mayor. The trust has distributed more than $16 million to schools, health providers, sports clubs and creative artists and will continue doing so well into the future.
He believed the local community should benefit from a major waste company’s project to rehabilitate the former Woodlawn Mine near Tarago.
“The foundation of the Trust certainly gave me some extra grey hairs,” he said in a letter read out in November last year at an event marking its 20th anniversary. Ill-health had prevented him from attending.
“You see something new unveiled with the Veolia Mulwaree Trust sign on it and think, ‘Oh well, I had something to do with that’.”
Residents of the former Mulwaree Shire also hold a special place in the 83-year-old former businessman’s heart.
“I got on really well with people in Mulwaree. They were good people,” he said.
He drew heavily on their support in the lead up the 2004 Local Government elections. Under redrawn boundaries that preceded the amalgamation of Mulwaree Shire and Goulburn City, his home address at Taralga was placed into the neighbouring Upper Lachlan Shire.
Paul with John Reynolds, Geoff Kettle, Denzil Sturgiss and Tarago locals at the beginning of work on a walking path project at the Tarago Recreation Area in 2011. Photo: Veolia Mulwaree Trust.
If he wanted to stay in local government, he would have had to start afresh in Upper Lachlan Shire, or move house and face the people of Goulburn and the former Mulwaree shire, which he did.
He then organised a voting group ticket, topped the poll and got all but one of his ticket elected to the new council.
“We were sitting down having something to eat after the poll closed and people came up and said, ‘Gee you should see what’s happening up here, they’re only counting your vote’, ” he said.
