QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Sir Sydney Schubert

In a public service career spanning 44 years, Sir Sydney Schubert rose from cadet engineer to Queensland’s most senior public servant, writes Robin Kleinschmidt, overseeing perhaps the most phenomenal growth period in the state’s history. When ‘Sir Syd’ was inducted into the Queensland Engineering Hall of Fame in 2009 he was described as “the foremost Queensland engineer in the 1970s and 1980s” in a time of spectacular growth. He is a second-generation Queenslander, his grandfather, a carpenter, having arrived from the vicinity of Dresden in the 1860s. He settled in Woombye, where he raised his family and built the railway station and other structures; he also built and operated the hotel. At one time there was a Schubert Street in the township, until German place names were altered in wartime. His son Wilhelm Ferdinand, who was Australian-born, was a local councillor and landholder. Anti-German feeling was unusually harsh during WWI, as there were so few Germans in the small town. Wilhelm moved to Brisbane, living at Mayne Junction near the railway yards of the city’s inner northside, and became a train driver. Sydney, born in 1928, third of the four boys in the family, was schooled at the local convent before attending St Joseph’s College, Gregory Terrace. He completed Senior at 16, narrowly missing an Open Scholarship to the University of Queensland. However, an engineeer cadetship with the Main Roads Department enabled him to work during the day and attend evening university classes. After completing two years of the degree in four years, he was awarded a scholarship to study full-time, graduating at 22 with First Class Honours. His first field appointment involved camp life, supervising bridge construction at Condamine. He then transferred to Cairns, where he supervised construction of the road to Cooktown. After four years in many far north locations he was relocated to Brisbane to the Research and Planning section. From 1957 Syd did two years’ study at Durham University in the UK, on a scholarship from the International Roads Federation. With a Diploma in Highway and Traffic Engineering, he returned to Australia via the USA, where he spent time in the Virginia Highway Department and in California. With his new credentials, on his return to Research and Planning, Syd was able to introduce modern methods to the department, and gave lectures on road technology to fourth-year UQ engineering students. In 1961 Syd wed Maureen Kistle, who had been Miss Australia in 1955. His career at the Main Roads Department came to an end in 1969, when he was co-opted to be Chief Engineer in the Co-ordinator-General’s Department.

A period of rapid promotion followed: Deputy Co-ordinator-General in 1973 and Co-ordinator General in 1976. He held that position until his retirement from the public service in mid-1988. His role expanded dramatically following the retirement in 1982 of Keith Spann, the head of the Premier’s Department, and those duties were added to the Coordinator-General’s. The additional role was sometimes called ‘the engine room of government’, carrying responsibility for protocol, planning for and escorting overseas heads of state or government, federal-state relationships and developing policy into draft legislation. As well, the role was responsible for the offices of Queensland’s Agents-General in London, Tokyo, Bahrain and Los Angeles. At a more mundane level it ran the State Stores Board and the Government Motor Garage. The head of the department was also Clerk of the Executive Council. The combined responsibilities presented a real challenge. Sydney Schubert’s tenure in the Co-ordinator- General’s Department was a time of rapid change. It was perhaps symbolised by the purchase of the first government computer while he was deputy under Charles Barton. As major infrastructure projects unfolded, the department was becoming a construction authority as much as a planning and oversight body, until building work was clearly delegated to relevant departments with the Co-ordinator-General maintaining oversight. The changes involved a process of decentralisation. An excellent administrator, Syd was in a position to influence the financing and direction of the infrastructure growth. A sample of the projects which the department initiated and oversaw during his time there include the resumptions for the Wivenhoe Dam and its planning, (as well as many other dams in Queensland), the planning of the new Port of Brisbane and new Brisbane Airport, preparation for the 1982 Commonwealth Games and Expo’88, and detailed study of the viability of a space-launch station on Cape York Peninsula. He was also on the Board of Expo’88.

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