Paul Mees

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 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.

In his final months, although seriously ill, Mees persisted in his campaigning endeavours. In 2013 he questioned the quality of research behind the Victorian Government's proposed east-west tunnel link in Melbourne's inner northern suburbs, recording a video presentation for a major public meeting a week before his death.

Mees died in Melbourne on 19 June 2013, aged 52. Mees was survived by Cervini; his mother Roma and father Tom, a retired barrister specialising in industrial relations law; and his three younger brothers - Peter (also a lawyer), Bernard (also an RMIT academic), and Stephen.

Mees's work was principally concerned with the planning of public transport in cities. He was a strong advocate for public transport, but less keen on urban bicycles as a realistic mass transport solution. His work provided the basis for the European Union's 2005 HiTrans project on improving public transport in medium-sized cities and towns. He was also a member of the International Advisory Council for Paris's New Mobility Agenda Project. His most recent research was on planning decision support tools for multimodal urban transport systems, and improvements to urban public transport planning in Australia.

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.

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.

Among the notable activist projects with which Mees involved himself were legal actions attempting to prevent the construction of expensive transport projects contrary to his views on what constituted good public transport policy. In the late 1990s he questioned the legality of aspects of the largest urban infrastructure project in Australia's history, the CityLink tollway system in Melbourne. Mees unsuccessfully contested the building of a marshalling yard and a new tram "superstop" in front of the main entrance to the University of Melbourne's Parkville campus on Swanston Street, and opposed the building of the proposed Melbourne Metro Rail Project tunnel under the centre of Melbourne, on the grounds that much less expensive options are available to boost capacity on the Melbourne suburban rail network. In the early 2000s he also helped to establish the short-lived Public Transport First Party in Victoria, which campaigned in selected electorates on transport-related issues.

In 1988 Mees married journalist, academic and teacher Erica Cervini.

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.

With an early interest in environmental and social justice issues, Mees studied environmental law as part of his undergraduate degree. In the 1980s his interests segued to a focus on sustainable transport, and he became involved in public transport advocacy through the Public Transport Users Association in Melbourne, becoming President of the organisation from 1992 to 2001.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Mees was an active member of the Australian debating community. He debated in competition from schools level, through university, to adult level. Mees served on the Executive of the Debaters Association of Victoria, adjudicated schools competition, and participated in selection and training of the Victorian Schools Debating Team. As an adult, he represented Victoria at the National Debating Championships, and was a member of the winning team in Hobart in 1992.

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