Graham Clews

Elected Member

A teacher by trade, an historian by inclination, Graham received his MA  in History in 2008 and  Phd in 2016.  A corner of his library reminds that, but for the distraction of a sporting career, he might have taken a very different direction from the discipline of History: The TimeLife series, Ehrlich’s Population Explosion, Durrell’s The Stationary Ark, Serventy’s Saving Australia: A blueprint for Our Survival (now an even more sober read!) A Guide to Australian Birds (passerines and non) and many more. Inspired in the early days, as were so many others, by Harry Butler, he recalls mention by his mother, a student of Northam, Western Australia in the 1940s,  of an inspirational teacher, Vincent Serventy, and a quirky student one year her senior, Harry Butler! Such brilliance in one small town! Jump forward, thirty or so years and he had the privilege of seeing Harry debate an arch-growthist at the University of Western Australia in the late seventies. Harry won the debate but, some forty years on, the War he was fighting is still to be won. In the mid-teens of this century, now living in Canberra, Graham became aware of the writing and work of Jenny Goldie, then, and current, president of Sustainable Population Australia. “Ït was impossible not to be drawn to the organisation and the remarkable people who are part of it” says Graham.  The message is so important!  How wonderful would it be to help finish the work begun by people such as Serventy all those years ago.”” Many organisations have dropped the ball, but not SPA!