DAVID TURNBULL marks former ACT politician Michael Moore’s 20th anniversary as a CityNews political columnist with this remarkable profile. If you think you know Michael Moore… you don’t.

Michael Moore is a familiar face in Canberra.

As a former member of the ACT Legislative Assembly, independent health minister in Kate Carnell’s Liberal government for a term and a columnist here in Canberra CityNews for 20 years, it’s a fair bet you think you know him.

But I can assure you, you don’t!

I have known Michael for 20 years and was stunned when I read his curriculum vitae.

Even the summary reads like an encyclopedia – every line crammed with details about work to help others.

He’s won many awards, but the most recent one stands out.

The World Federation for Public Health Associations honoured Michael in September with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Global Health in recognition of an exceptional career spanning political leadership and public health advocacy.

Not bad for someone who started as an English teacher.

The fourth of nine children

Michael Moore was born in 1950 in Adelaide, the fourth of nine children (five boys and four girls).

His Father, Kevin, was a draftsman, who’d met his mother, Rita, while training in Montreal, Canada, for war service with the Empire Air Service. 

The couple married and returned to Australia when Kevin was discharged with rheumatic fever.

Michael says he grew up in “a liberal but very committed Catholic family”.

After attending a Christian Brothers College, he spent two years studying to be a priest before deciding against religion. He subsequently attended Flinders University and did an arts degree with joint majors in English and philosophy.

He says his dad was technically minded, and his mum was passionate about literature, music and painting.

“Money was tight,” he recalls. “I remember being upset when a friend got a brand-new bike and dad told me not to worry: ‘You’ve got something better: you can change a wheel!’

“He was so practical. When he had seven kids he went back to university to study engineering to bring more money in.”

Michael didn’t have that many children himself, but he did finish his PhD just before his 70th birthday!

He first came to Canberra in the early ’70s to take up a teaching position at Daramalan College.

“I didn’t even have a Diploma of Education, but they said I could do that after the first year, and I did.”

He was able to avoid conscription and the Vietnam War by virtue of six years’ service in the Army Reserve, during which time he rose to lieutenant.

Soon after returning to Adelaide, a girl he’d met in Canberra named Helen Wigley joined him.

Both teachers, they lived and worked in various places around South Australia before heading off to Canada on a teachers’ exchange and then driving a Kombi around Europe.

When Helen fell pregnant, they decided to return to Canberra and bought a house in Reid around the corner from where Helen grew up.

With two sons Michael and Helen took turns relief teaching while the other parent cared for the children.

“Philosophically, we were committed to that.

“Money didn’t even come into it”.

By the time their third child, a daughter, was born Michael and Helen noticed changes in the quiet street they lived in.

“At first, it was just annoying seeing the street packed with parked cars.

“Some days we couldn’t even get out of our driveway.

“And when I talked to neighbours, I found people were genuinely worried the heritage value of Reid was under threat.

When a man from across the road came over

Michael wrote a letter to The Canberra Times raising his concerns, and the next day a man from across the road came over.

Turns out the man who knocked on his door was Peter Harrison – the second great planner in the ACT after Walter Burley Griffin.

He told Michael: “The problem isn’t just in Reid; this is happening all over Canberra. 

“The original plan was supposed to have suburban centres spaced with government departments relocated so people could live and work without driving into Civic, but that was not being followed.”

Mentored by the former National Capital Development Commission Planner, Michael helped form the Cambell, Braddon and Ainslie Residents Associations, grassroots protest groups that flourished and spread north and south of the lake.

The residents’ associations held a massive protest rally in Civic. When human rights lawyer Bernard Collaery got involved – and with self-government approaching – the Residents’ Rally political party was formed.

In March 1989, Michael was one of four Rally MLAs elected to the first ACT Legislative Assembly.

The constraints of party politics soon saw Michael leave, and he served four terms as an independent.

And his focus on planning issues widened out to include health.

“Legalising prostitution, decriminalising cannabis, designing a heroin trial, aged care and legalising voluntary assisted dying – all those issues captured my attention.

So much so that he went back to university part-time to do a master’s degree in public health.

And it paid off.

In 1998, Liberal chief minister Kate Carnell appointed him as health minister, making him the first independent member of any Australian parliament to be appointed to a government executive portfolio.

Right from the start, it was apparent this man was different.

Within the first weeks of being minister, he published a list of 12 things he wanted to achieve and was disappointed he only ticked off on 11 – including bringing emergency waiting times and the health budget under control.

Michael also introduced Australia’s first voluntary assisted dying legislation, overridden by the feds but adopted in the Northern Territory.

Desire to improve public health still burnt bright

In 2001 Michael stepped away from politics to open Psychedeli café with his wife and children in Civic.

At this time he became a member of the Rotary Club of Canberra and eventually was elected as the district governor for an area covering the ACT and most of southern NSW.

But the desire to improve public health still burnt bright, so he dived back into the fray and restored a tired Public Health Association of Australia into a strong policy advocate again.

Then, he stepped on to the world stage with the World Federation for Public Health Associations where he rose to be president.

“Straddling the first and third worlds made it so much harder to get agreed outcomes.

“But I’ve been able to see things from other peoples’ perspectives.

“The truth is: I often agree with both sides of policy arguments.

“But Helen has always helped me get over the logjams.

“’What are you trying to achieve here”? she would say. “One small step forward is better than no progress at all.”

Michael has been involved in too many health campaigns to mention.

Today he’s no longer the president of the WFPHA but he’s running their immunisation campaign.

And he’s sharpened his focus to advocacy.

“My driver has always been teaching.

“The public health associations are good at developing policies. What they are not good at is influencing governments. 

“So now I’m travelling the world teaching people how to advocate, how to bring the stakeholders together to bring about change.”

Michael Moore’s gift is not complicated.

He’s not encumbered with an ego that must win at all costs.

He’s genuinely inclusive.

And he’s focused on one thing – improving people’s health.

Journalist David Turnbull is writing a series of profiles about interesting Canberrans. Do you know someone who deserves a moment in the spotlight? Share the name in an email to David via editor@citynews.com.au  

Thank you for two decades of wisdom

It was around this time of the year in 2006 and I had been invited to speak at the Rotary Club of Canberra. Michael was acting as club president and we were talking over lunch.

CityNews had no real political coverage (nor much else) in those days and I was on the lookout for a columnist with experience in politics, particularly self-government.

So I popped the question and asked if he’d like to do it. Yes and no, he hummed and hawed, and in the end – well, okay – agreed to give it a bit of a go, until, say, Christmas.

Happily he didn’t say which Christmas and here we are almost 20 yuletides later proudly publishing the thoughtful, mature and unafraid weekly columns that offer such wisdom, I sometimes wish he was still in the Assembly. I’m certain Canberra would be a much better place for it.

So thank you to Michael Moore for two decades of calling out the wrongs and supporting the rights of our imperfect local political process. 

Ian Meikle, editor

News all day, every day at CityNewsQBN.com.au.