Dr John Coulter, who has died aged 93, had been suffering for months from VEXAS syndrome, an adult-onset autoinflammatory disease caused by a mutation of a gene in blood stem cells. It is perhaps ironic that he had himself worked on mutagens — the agents that cause mutations — at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide in the mid-1970s.
VEXAS did not directly kill him, however. With no cure available, and very ill, he chose to go via the Voluntary Assisted Dying route. Surrounded by a dozen close friends and family at the Laurel hospice at Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, he took his last medicine mid-afternoon on 6 September. He was of sound mind to the last.
And what a mind it was! His mother, wanting him to be a doctor, went back to nursing so he could attend Wesley College in Perth. From there he had a year studying science at UWA before transferring to medicine at Adelaide University. Medical science, however, rather than clinical medicine, was his great love and through the 60s and 70s he worked at the IMVS. It all came unstuck in 1978, however, when he appeared on ABC TV’s Four Corners, waving a can of Baygon and warning of its carcinogenic properties, prompting a “stop” writ on the ABC for $10 million. Coulter lost his job, his Environmental Mutagens Testing Unit closed, and although he took the IMVS to court for wrongful dismissal, he never returned to work there.
Meanwhile, he had another life as an environmental activist. He sought action on a wide range of issues including nuclear power, population, nature protection, renewable energy and climate change. He was largely responsible, through his work with the Town and Country Planning Association, for the establishment of the Fox Inquiry, a committee established by the Whitlam Government, which explored the environmental concerns surrounding uranium mining.
As well as the TCPA, Coulter was heavily involved in other environmental organisations, not least the Conservation Council of South Australia of which he was a founding member in 1971 and later president. He was vice-president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
In 1973, after a campaign against large native trees in the area being cut down, Coulter was elected to Campbelltown City Council. He served for two years.
Population was the central issue for Coulter all his life. He saw a sustainable population as one which Australia could support without progressive damage to the environment. He set up the Adelaide branch of Zero Population Growth in 1971 and, from 1989, was active in Sustainable Population Australia, serving for a number of years as president and, this year, as a patron.
Coulter had been heavily influenced by Herman Daly, an American economist at the World Bank, the father of steady state economics. A stable population was integral to the whole concept of a steady state economy. Coulter was adept at integrating various disciplines and was one of the few with a coherent philosophy on life.
In 1971, Coulter published a full-page advertisement in The Australian warning of the environmental costs of economic and population growth. It was signed by many eminent scientists including Sir Marcus Oliphant. This was a year before the seminal Limits to Growth, commissioned by the Club of Rome, was published which largely addressed the same issue.
In 1987, Coulter was elected as senator for South Australia to the Australian Senate where he remained for eight years, two of which were as leader of the Australian Democrats. His colleagues from all sides of the Chamber recognised his formidable work ethic and appreciated how he could bring a deep scientific knowledge and perspective to so many issues. He was hard-working and active on a number of Senate committees. He was in the forefront of climate action, bringing out leading climate scientist Stephen Schneider to Australia in the late 80s to address a meeting in Parliament House. At the same time, the ozone hole was being discussed internationally, and Coulter would privately rail against journalists who could not differentiate between climate change and the ozone hole. His fellow Parliamentarians were a little better as all but a handful had a science background.
He established the first major Senate Inquiry into Climate Change. In 1995, Coulter called on the Keating Government to introduce a carbon tax, 17 years before the Gillard minority government introduced one, the only measure so far that has been effective in reducing national greenhouse emissions.
Coulter lost the leadership of the Democrats to Cheryl Kernot, having shouldered much of the blame for the poor showing in the 1993 elections. It was a little unfair as the party itself had fallen into disarray after the successes of the 1990 election. Coulter was blamed for “usurping” Janet Powell as leader, and yet it had been a 6:2 party room decision against her. He could not counter the consequent media bias against him, nor could he make headway against the prevailing economic growth paradigm shared by both major parties.
Towards the end of his life, he said he regretted that he had not been able to make the world a better place through “science and logic and common sense and intelligence”. In reassuring him that he was by no means a failure, a friend responded: “Well, aiming high has its downside, especially if your motive is altruistic and your measure of success is a revolution in global stewardship!”
Coulter is survived by his daughter Kiersten and step-children Graham, Debbie and Gwendolynne. His second wife Phyllis and son Peter predeceased him.
Dr John Coulter, 3 December 1930 – 6 September 2024
Jenny Goldie
Jenny Goldie was on the staff of Senator John Coulter from 1988-1993 and remained friends until his death. She is a former science teacher and CSIRO science communicator. She co-founded Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population in 1988 which later became Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). Jenny is immediate past-president of SPA and currently its NSW president. She founded Climate Action Monaro in 2011 and was recently re-elected president. She actively engages in public discussion of population and climate issues.