Ann and Bruce McGregor at a favourite spot along the Merri Creek in Brunswick East. Photo: Mark Phillips
Mark Phillips
Friday, February 20, 2026
HAD it not been for a small article in their local newspaper half a century ago, life may have been very different for Ann and Bruce McGregor.
But that story in the Brunswick Sentinel in May 1976 set the newly married couple on a path to a lifetime commitment to restoring the Merri Creek and its surrounding native habitat.
So great has been their contribution that they have now both received Order of Australia honours.
Ann was given her Medal of the Order of Australia in 2023 “for service to the conservation and environment”.
This year it is Bruce’s turn. He was announced as a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day honours on January 26 “for significant service to conservation and environment, in a range of roles”.
Such bland descriptions barely scratch the surface in describing their achievements over the past 50 years.
They are too modest to say it themselves, but without their joint efforts the Merri Creek that is such a beloved community asset today would probably not exist.
“It’s very nice to be acknowledged in this way and we’re very grateful to the people who nominated us and refereed us, but it’s been an effort by many people and we’ve just been involved at key times,” says Ann.
“Collaboration has been the key all the way along.”
Bruce echoes those sentiments, adding that the honours are a reward for persistence.
“You just do things because they need to be done and someone needs to do it,” he says.
When the McGregors bought their first house in Brunswick in the mid-1970s, it is no exaggeration to say the Merri Creek was in danger of dying. Its banks had long been a dumping ground for rubbish and industrial waste and were mostly avoided. Much of the creek was set to be concreted as part of a plan for a new freeway.
As for the quality of the water itself, the best description would be “an open sewer”.
But a small article in the May 19, 1976 edition of the Sentinel caught the McGregors’ eye and was to change the course of history.
“Imagine if you can, parkland, walking tracks, bike paths and sports grounds .. all set alongside a crystal clear, rambling creek,” it began.
The article had been written to promote “a walk along the creek” led by Brunswick Community Group chairman Gil Freeman.
Freeman, a visionary figure who also was involved in the establishment of both CERES and the Sydney Road Community School, could see the potential for the land along the creek if it could be cleaned up and restored to its natural habitat.
The McGregors joined the walk that Sunday and before they knew it, they had become involved in the campaign to clean up Merri Creek.
“We went on the walk and it was hard work getting through the overgrown fennel weeds,” says Ann.
“You could only navigate by using the power lines for guidance.”
It wasn’t only weeds. Bruce recalls the banks of the creeks were popular for abandoned cars, and what is now Kirkdale Reserve was a council quarry and then a tip owned by Whelan the Wreckers.
The state government wanted to concrete parts of the creek to turn to it into a freeway reserve similar to the Moonee Ponds Creek. And public access to the creek itself was restricted as properties backing onto it had titles that extended into the middle of the waterway.
But the McGregors could see the potential that Freeman had identified.
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There were many false starts. Ann recalls the first big planting day at Clara Street near the Brunswick Velodrome was almost immediately underdone when an overly-zealous council worker mowed over everything the following week.
“We had a few trial and error planting days,” she says.
“The [tree] stakes were very attractive as tomato stakes and the council mower man would mow right through [the newly planted native grasses] … it would be lovely to go back to Clara Street today and do the job properly.”
Early on, Bruce realised that these piecemeal efforts, while worthy, would not solve the bigger problems and Brunswick, Coburg and other councils were encouraged to acquire private frontages so a continuous native area could be created along the length of the creek.
Key to this was laying the shared path that exists today.
“The pathway is the spine for hanging revegetation off,” he says.
“A big part was conceptualising the path and then working continuously over many years to make it happen.
“We had a rough design and then got funding for the concept plans and then spent a lot of the ‘80s working with council staff to get grants from the state and federal governments.”
In 1988, the Friends of Merri Creek was formed as a volunteer-run organisation for the full length of the catchment, while simultaneously plans were made for full-time staff to manage the growing amount of work.
“Volunteers can do a lot of things but that’s not really suitable for 40 km of creek banks.
“To really make a difference, you needed to have staff as a dedicated restoration team and they need to do it full-time.”
The result was the establishment in 1989 of the Merri Creek Management Committee MCMC), an organisation that today employs more than 20 staff to co-ordinate the preservation, restoration and maintenance of the creek and its tributaries. Several hundred people have worked for the MCMC since its inception.
Bruce was inaugural vice-president of both organisations and secretary of the MCMC until 1996, while Ann was president of the MCMC from 2012 until last year (she remains as a vice-president) and continues as a board member of the Friends of Merri Creek after recently stepping down following more than two decades as vice-president.
Sitting on a bench overlooking the creek near the velodrome, the McGregors note that birds singing and new trees self-germinating are two signs of the success of their long-term project.
“It’s very satisfying as we have got older to come down here and to be able to enjoy the bushland setting and parks along the Merri and particularly to see lots of other people people enjoying the place, whether they’re walkers or runners or bike riders or they’re bringing their kids, it’s great because none of that was possible a few years ago,” says Bruce.
There were many battles along the way, none more so than the long saga to secure the Whelans site in the late-1980s.
It took even longer – including a high profile Federal Court case – before the state government was finally convinced in 2003 to abandon plans for a freeway along the route of the creek from Craigieburn to Clifton Hill.
“One of the key things about the way we operated was sure, we were ‘anti-freeway’ or ‘anti-Whelans’ but how our campaigns ran was by selling a vision that we were ‘pro’,” says Bruce.
“We were ‘pro-parks’ or ‘pro-restoration’.”
The McGregors’ influence extends beyond the Merri Creek. A guide to indigenous planting that Bruce and Ann first co-wrote in the 1980s has been emulated and adapted through other parts of Australia.
The founder of Clean Up Australia Day, Ian Kiernan, has acknowledged that the rubbish removal programs pioneered along the creek served as the model for his own initiative.
Bruce’s award also recognises his various roles with the Victorian National Parks Association – including four years as president – and National Parks Australia Councl and numerous of local and statewide voluntary positions, not to mention 150 reviewed science papers, eight book chapters, 50 technical reports and 350 advisory, conference and outreach publications.
Ann, whose training was in urban planning, has been a board member of Biolinks Alliance, and chairs the Nature Glenelg Trust.
But their legacy may well be the Nature Stewards program which works with councils to provide multi-week education courses to connect people with their local habitats. Participants gain practical skills and learn ways to volunteer in their area to preserve native areas.
The aim is to ensure there are younger people to continue the work of people of their generation while equipping them from the start with skills that the McGregors had to learn the hard way.
While they have stepped back from some of their structured roles as they enter their eighth decade, the McGregors maintain a keen interest in the future of the Merri Creek.
“There’s still opportunities to widen the habitat corridor and there’s plenty of issues where urbanisation is encroaching into the creek,” says Ann.
“Bruce used to say it’s a 50 year project, but the 50 years has come up and there’s still more work to do.”
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