After a life in dairy farms, aviation and local government, former Ipswich mayor John Nugent was surprised to hear of his honorary doctorate from The University of Queensland.
Mr Nugent, OAM, received a Doctor of the University in recognition of his service to Ipswich and support of the UQ Ipswich campus, during Ipswich graduations on December 6. Mr Nugent's speech can be heard here.
“I’m probably the most undereducated bloke to be offered one of these. I only made it to grade nine at school,” Mr Nugent said.
He quickly became accustomed to hard work early in his life growing up on dairy farms at Esk, Flinders View and Goodna.
“You had to get out of bed and help to milk the cows before you went to school, then do all the chores around the yard when you came home in the afternoon. And that’s before you did your homework and went to bed,” Mr Nugent said.
He was a speedy winger for the Goodna Rugby League Club and earned the nickname of Nugget because his surname was similar to the boot polish.
After a five-year-apprenticeship, he became an aviation electronics technician with the Department of Civil Aviation.
“I worked for them until 1959 when I had a girlfriend by then and running around Australia as I was, wasn’t very conducive to my view on things.
“So I left them and became a bread vendor for 18 months, selling bread door-to-door.”
In 1960, Mr Nugent went back to electronics, this time on the internal electronics of mainly military aircraft for the Amalgamated Wireless of Australasia (AWA).
He married Glenis in the same year and raised two daughters and a son and now has seven grandchildren. Glenis passed away suddenly last December.
He worked for AWA until 1988 including many years working on airborne electronics at the Amberley RAAF base and Oakey Army Base.
His ended his electronics career in 1988 when he became the full-time Mayor and Chairman of the Moreton Shire and Mayor of the new Ipswich City Council in 1995.
Until his retirement on March 27 this year, Mr Nugent had been a tireless community worker in local government as a councillor, chairman and mayor since 1973.
For 16 of those 31 years, Mr Nugent was Mayor of Moreton Shire and of Ipswich City Council and said he was committed to building key services in Ipswich, attracting business investment and promoting cultural issues and protecting the environment.
He coordinated the regional approach to fix the water quality of Moreton Bay and was proud to have lead the council that introduced Ipswich’s environmental levy.
Mr Nugent also served on many local, regional and State Government committees and forums.
In 1988, he was awarded an Order of Australia for his service to the community and his 15 years with the Goodna Rotary Club has earned him Rotary’s highest honour, a Paul Harris Fellowship.
Mr Nugent has been keeping busy since leaving the Ipswich Council by working with regional water management groups, the World Technopolis Association and a part-time consultancy with land developers.
He said some of his testing times at council was when he used his vote to break a six-all deadlock to approve the Swanbank Waste Treatment Centre and the introduction of the controversial environmental levy.
“One thing I’ve learnt in local government is just because someone makes a lot of noise doesn’t mean they are right and it doesn’t mean they’ve got a lot of support either.”
He said the levy was initially controversial but it was now widely accepted because it allowed the council to buy 5000 hectares of land for conservation and negotiate voluntary conservation agreements with landowners.
The 69-year-old said he relished his opportunities for international travel which brought investment to Ipswich such as a $500,000 Chinese investment in an Ipswich winery.
“Age is just a state of mind. I know some fellas who are 29 that are too lazy to get out of their own shadow.”
Media: contact Mr Nugent (phone: 0409 841 430, email: jnug5586@bigpond.net.au) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (phone: 3365 2619, email: m.holland@uq.edu.au)
