Maureen Duffy

Nominated by North Queensland Area Council, Peninsula Area Council

Maureen joined the QTU in 1988 when she started teaching in Blackwater.

She was appointed North Queensland Organiser in 1996, back in the days when the QTU’s North Queensland region covered a huge area, taking in Townsville, Longreach, Barcaldine and a host of other areas. 

In January 2002 Maureen became Peninsula and North West Organiser, with responsibility for a truly enormous geographic area, stretching from Cardwell just south of Tully all the way up to the Papua New Guinea border, from the sea to the Northern Territory border, and covering places as diverse as Cairns, Mt Isa, Doomadgee, Mornington Island, and the Gulf. 

Maureen’s signature work throughout those years has been her efforts with young teachers and inexperienced principals in remote communities, building activists in the remotest places who would later go on to take what they had learned across the state. 

Teacher accommodation and remote incentives and transfers, then as now, were always top of the agenda in those remote areas.  Cyclones, community disturbance and tragedy also marked Maureen’s time in the north. She is incredibly good in a crisis, having the experience to back up her good intentions, and has always been there for members when they needed help. 

Maureen always had an eye to the professional status and standards of teaching, melding that with caring for the industrial rights and entitlements of her members. 

She will go down as a legend of our Union, and her influence will linger long, particularly in the north.