Trude Kallir: 1922 - 2012

Trude Kallir and her family escaped from Vienna in 1939 and fled to Sydney. In 1948 she married Harry Kallir, also a Viennese refugee, who had been wooing her with dozens of long-stemmed red roses.

The young couple moved to a new housing estate in Boronia Park. It was so new that there were few facilities, and no sewerage. Trude, as she was known to everybody, immediately set about trying to improve the lot of her community. It was the start of a long career of volunteering and community activism.

One of her first projects was the nearby council dump, where burning rubbish and smoke wafted over neighbouring houses. Kallir, working with the Ryde-Hunters Hill Flora and Fauna Preservation Society, successfully fought to have that land converted to a bushland reserve, now the Field of Mars Reserve.

This brought her to the attention of a handful of women trying to protect five hectares of land on the Parramatta River in Hunters Hill. Developers planned to turn it into a series of high-rise buildings. There had been no community consultation.

Kallir leapt at the chance to help to save the last remaining strip of bushland in that area. The women called themselves the Battlers for Kelly's Bush. They wrote letters, lobbied Parliament and enticed the media with offers of tea and cakes. The battle continued for 13 years.The turning point occurred when Jack Mundey, the secretary of the Builders Labourers Federation, responded to a letter that the women had sent to Trades Hall. The members of the BLF voted to refuse to bulldoze the bush.

Green Ban Fusiliers - by Denis Kevans

Developer AV Jennings threatened to bring in non-union labour. Work then stopped on AV Jennings sites across Sydney. This was the start of the green bans. The Rocks, The Royal Botanic Gardens and Centennial Park are some of the sites to have benefited from subsequent green bans. The movement gradually spread throughout the nation and the world.

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