Maurice Dunlevy was the journalist who wrote the book on the capital

Maurice Dunlevy, who helped shape the future of Canberra, nurtured its intellectual life and trained scores of journalists, died peacefully on October 6 aged 90.

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Journalist Maurice Dunlevy. Picture supplied

He was a much-loved father to Sue and Lyn, grandfather to Katherine, Lucy, Jack and Niamh, and great-grandfather to Theodore.

Maurice was born in Broken Hill in 1936, the first of four children to Emily and Norman, a miner and leader of the Workers' Industrial Union of Australia (Barrier District).

Norman's family had been among the first people to work in the new BHP mines that quickly became the richest in the world, walking across the outback from Cobar to help build the town.

When Norman, who set up one of the first sickness funds to help the families of injured workers, died suddenly in 1959, the entire town mourned, and hundreds lined the streets.

Despite his mother Emily being raised in the Salvation Army, Maurice was raised in the Catholic faith of his father, with Mass, Communion and Catholic schooling a mandatory part of his upbringing.

Maurice developed the bone infection osteomyelitis as a child and was hospitalised for lengthy and gruelling treatment. He coped by learning to read. He grew up in a home passionate about books, education and the improvement of the working class, and his fierce intellect and passion for learning won him a scholarship at the Bathurst Teachers College.

After spending a few years paying off his scholarship teaching in rural NSW at Ungarie, he returned to Broken Hill to write for the Barrier Daily Truth and the Barrier Miner.

In 1962, he moved to Canberra where he lived for the remainder of his life.

Journalist Maurice Dunlevy. Picture supplied

He wrote for The Canberra Times for many years, once climbing onto the roof of Albert Hall to listen in to a private union meeting, and another time hopping the fence at The Lodge to talk to gardeners unhappy at their working conditions.

For over 30 years his weekly Writer's World column in The Canberra Times critiqued the greatest books of our times and contributed to the intellectual life of the nation's capital. He delighted in sharing his passion for books with readers, which also contributed to his house being literally filled from floor to ceiling, in every room bar the bathroom, with bookshelves crammed with books.

In the 1970s he worked for the National Capital Development Commission and wrote the landmark Tomorrow's Canberra report, described at the time as "the most comprehensive and authoritative book written to date about Canberra". The report set out the strategy for growing the city's population of 130,000 in 1970, to the vibrant, national capital of 500,000 it is today.

Maurice also wrote critical reports that helped protect Sydney's historic Rocks area from redevelopment around the time of the famous union Green Bans, and the first reports on the salinity threat to the Murray Darling Basin in which he concluded "the enemy is us".

He was later invited to establish one of Australia's first journalism degrees at the Canberra College of Advanced Education (now the University of Canberra) where he trained many of the nation's finest journalists including several who went on to advise prime ministers. At one time, the senior press secretary for both the prime minister and opposition leader were his former students.

In the 1980s journalism had become a rock star profession, attracting many students keen to see their face on TV, but often with little interest in the events they might be reporting on. Maurice delighted in setting his students mandatory pop quizzes on the top stories of the day to ensure they stayed across the major news events at home and abroad.

A young Maurice Dunlevy. Picture supplied

During that time he wrote the textbook Feature Writing, which remained a standard text for many years.

It was a source of great amusement to Maurice's family that a man firmly at home in a house filled with thousands of books and thousands of recordings of great music and with zero interest in the outdoors wrote the nation's best-selling survival manual, Stay Alive, which was reprinted multiple times.

Maurice retired in the late 1990s to help raise his grandchildren, one of whom has joined his mother, aunt and uncle in becoming a journalist, carrying his legacy into a third generation.

Maurice Dunlevy had a vast intellect, and his influence lives on through the people he trained, the many government reports he authored into the nation's most intractable problems and the love and devotion of his children, grandchildren, and his first great-grandchild.

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