One of the most under-recognised names in the history of NSW is John Joseph Cahill, better known as Joe, or even ``Old Smoothie''. Joe Cahill represented the Cook's River area of Sydney in the NSW parliament between 1925 and 1959.
There are some things around Sydney that are named in Joe Cahill's honour.
J.J. Cahill Memorial High School is at Mascot. And the Cahill Expressway runs across Sydney Cove. There's not much else.
But there's a modest plate set in concrete at the bottom of the steps of our Opera House that deserves more attention. This plaque tells its few readers that the construction of the Opera House commenced on the 2nd of March 1959. And it records that the plaque was fixed that day by the Hon. John Joseph Cahill, MLA, Premier of New South Wales.
Four years previously, Cahill had convinced his Labor colleagues that an opera house at Bennelong Point was a good idea. He announced an international competition for its design. The winning design was submitted by Dutch architect Jorn Utzon. And the rest is a history we all know.
An excellent biography of Joe Cahill has recently been published. It is written by journalist and writer Peter Golding.
The book tells a fascinating tale of a fitter from Eveleigh railway workshops who becomes one of our great state premiers.
One extract from the book tells much about the capacity of this man, Joe Cahill, and of the extraordinarily difficult time in which he lived and governed.
The extract describes Joe's appointment as Minister for Public Works in a newly elected McKell Labor government in May 1941, in the early days of the Second World War.
``Initially Cahill's responsibilities encompassed electricity supply, architectural services (including the construction and maintenance of public buildings), water supply and sewerage, stormwater and swamp drainage, harbours and rivers administration, administration of the state's industrial undertakings and supervision of local government engineering.''
Soon after, though, Cahill's responsibilities were expanded -- as if he didn't have enough to do -- to include electricity production, hospitals, housing (including the conversion of former military camps) and ship building. Moreover, Cahill was charged with establishing the State Dockyards at Newcastle, the State Brickworks at Homebush, the provision of wartime shipping facilities and aircraft landing fields, and air raid shelters and trenches.
And thus Joe Cahill put in place the means by which infrastructure was designed, built, maintained and paid for in Sydney's post-war years.
Seven months after he laid the Opera House plaque, Joe Cahill died in office.
His biographer tells the story of a politician who knew the importance of public works, of what we now call infrastructure, in the lives of ordinary Sydneysiders.
Is there another Joe Cahill out there?
Phillip O'Neill is Professor and Director, Urban Research Centre, The University of Western SydneyPhillip O'Neill is Professor and Director, Urban Research Centre, The University of Western Sydney
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