Paul Mees

Paul Mees OAM (20 March 1961 - 19 June 2013) was an Australian academic, specialising in urban planning and public transport.

Mees died on 19 June 2013, 14 months after the diagnosis of kidney cancer. He was 52. At the time of his death he was an Associate Professor in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.

A committed educator and prolific researcher, Mees was also well known outside academic circles for his advocacy and activism in support of public transport as a means of sustainable transport, particularly in urban areas. In both his campaigning and academic work Mees confronted powerful interests, questioned the status quo and challenged common community perceptions of good policy and practice - often courting controversy. It was the distinctive fusion of his achievements as a scholar and as an activist that set Mees apart from many of his academic peers.

Shortly after his death, Senator Penny Wright, a fellow law student and debating colleague, paid tribute to Mees in the Australian Senate. More recently he was recognised for his achievements in the Australia Day Honours of 2014, posthumously awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for "service to public transport and urban planning as an academic and advocate for creating sustainable cities".

Mees began his professional career as a lawyer in the mid 1980s. Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Melbourne, he was admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria. He practised mostly in industrial relations law, first at Melbourne law firm Gill Kane & Co and later at Maurice Blackburn.

In the early 1990s Mees left the law to return to study, his doctoral research at the University of Melbourne involving a comparison of public transport in Toronto and Melbourne, and his thesis accounted for the relative success of the former compared to the latter in the post-war period, given the otherwise physical and demographic similarities of the two cities. He gained his PhD in 1997. His thesis, which was later published under the title A Very Public Solution is considered an authoritative text in the field.

After a period as a Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Urban Research Program, in 1998 Mees returned to the University of Melbourne to teach and research. In 2008, amid a public furore over academic independence, he was demoted by the University. Its key complaint related to public criticisms Mees had made about state government officials, although a subsequent investigation dismissed the University's complaints. By that time, however, Mees had resigned to take up an appointment at RMIT University. Promoted to Associate Professor in 2012, Mees researched and taught at RMIT until his death.

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