From the time he took up the position to the time he left it, Warwick Arthur Watkins was a very controversial, but effective, NSW Surveyor-General. He guided, challenged, pushed and cajoled an often unwilling profession in the direction of his vision for a united and broadened industry that would be of more benefit to the society it served than the insular and self-absorbed mob of discordant entities that he had inherited. His style attracted the detractors, especially those who thought that as a “non-surveyor” he had no legitimate claim to the position. To such people, he was, in essence, a usurper. However, to those who worked closely with him, his value was not only in technical knowledge but also in his broader perspective of the profession and its place in society, his high-level management skills and especially his strategic leadership. In this role, in our profession, in his time, he was without peer.
Warwick’s first State government leadership position was as the Commissioner of the NSW Soil Conservation Service. Warwick also led by example in undertaking “extra-curricular” roles such as Deputy Commissioner of the Murray Darling Basin Commission 1992-95, Chair of the Total Catchment Management Coordinating Committee and Deputy Chair of the CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country Flagship Board. He was also a Foundation Director of Landcare Australia Ltd from 1991 to 2002.
When Warwick was appointed the Chief Executive of the Land and Property Management Authority (LPMA) in 2000 he applied his energy, intellect and skills to a super agency that covered land and resource management, Crown Lands and the 3 pillars of the state’s property wealth: the Registrar-General, Valuer-General and Surveyor-General. He was obsessed in achieving his vision to revitalise land information management and to make others recognise and appreciate the fundamental role of spatial information in managing assets and planning for the future. In his leadership role, Warwick made NSW a safer place to live through the creation of the Emergency Information Coordination Unit which brought together spatial information from more than 200 private and public sector sources. This cohesive approach supported better decision-making for counter-terrorism, emergency response and public safety for major events such as Sydney’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.
In 2000, Warwick’s appointment as the State’s 24th Surveyor-General sent a ripple of disquiet through the ultra-conservative Surveying profession. It was quipped that Warwick was neither a Surveyor nor a General, and so how could he be qualified to hold the position. However, in spite of this controversy it was Warwick’s vision, drive and determination that propelled the profession of Surveying into the 21st Century and created the foundation for a new “Spatial Information Industry”.
Warwick believed that surveyors had lost ground to other spatial professionals in spite of their historic and intrinsic value. As Surveyor-General, he therefore committed himself to raise the influence of surveyors in the society they served, and to reinstate the profession as the leaders of the spatial information industry. Warwick held a great respect for the position of Surveyor-General and understood the need to create an enduring legacy. Where previous leaders had failed, he initiated and established the biggest legislative reform in Surveying in almost a century by bringing land and mining surveyors together under the same umbrella Act. This produced a more cohesive approach to spatial information and addressed the deficiencies which had resulted in the Gretley mine disaster of 1994.
As President of the NSW Board of Surveying & Spatial Information (BOSSI), Warwick formalised the structure of the Board into a number of committees to deal efficiently and effectively with matters of high importance to the profession. For the first time, he guaranteed in legislation that the Institution of Surveyors NSW would have three members of the new Board. Also for the first time, the Board had the power to prosecute unqualified persons undertaking land surveys. His inclusive management style resulted in the implementation of a “Joint Administration Model” (JAM) to involve all professional associations in the management of the profession, encouraging and challenging them to work together.
In addition to his Surveyor-General position, Warwick was Chair of the Geographical Names Board and the inaugural Chair of the NSW Spatial Council. Under his leadership, the ‘Dual Naming’ of geographical features was introduced to support indigenous cultural recognition and reconciliation, including several iconic headlands and landmarks around Sydney Harbour.
Warwick implemented “CorsNET”, a more accurate GPS positioning infrastructure for use in Surveying, spatial information and machine guidance, by championing the installation of a dense State-wide network of survey control stations. His vision positively impacted the accuracy of the location services we use in our Smartphones every day and provided accurate locational assurance to agriculture and construction activities.
Warwick’s chairmanship of the Australian & New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) resulted in a partnership with the Australian Bureau of Statistics to meet the increasing demand for statistical information about Australia's progress at the local level through map-based (spatial) portrayal of information.
Another of Warwick’s innovations was the introduction of a sponsorship scheme in Surveying & Spatial Information to encourage young people to join the profession and create a more diverse and dynamic industry. The current Surveyor-General is one of those sponsorship beneficiaries and one of many surveyors, young and not so young, inspired by his leadership.
It was as a result of Warwick’s work with the naming of sections of state borders after the pioneer surveyors who laid them out that he formed an enduring bond with the former NSW Governor, the Honourable Dame Marie Bashir. During her term of office, Dame Marie accepted the then vacant position of Patron of the Institution of Surveyors NSW. This patronage has been ongoing with successive NSW Governors.
Warwick never set himself limits and had a huge influence not only in NSW but nationally and internationally. His strategic leadership skills and abilities were renowned and he was actively sought out to lead institutions and committees; help start-ups in ICT, research, science and business sectors and advise Governments at the highest levels. The list of those organisations, businesses, communities and individuals he helped is substantial.
The Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information was a particular success for Warwick as he helped get it established and was Deputy Chair during its formative years. The present CEO of Frontier SI, the current iteration, said “Warwick was a giant in the Spatial Industry in terms of his vision for national coherence through ANZLIC the Spatial Information Council and the CRC. His legacy is that these initiatives, in which he played a major hand, have spawned changes in Australia for the better”.
In 2005, Warwick put a lot of energy into supporting a bid for attracting an International Federation of Surveyors World Congress to Sydney. Warwick led the bid team to Cairo and after some intense lobbying and support from the Asia-Pacific region, “Sideney” won the bid and went on to deliver “the best Congress ever” in 2010.
Warwick was made an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Surveyors NSW in 2005. He was also a Fellow of the Australian Property Institute, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 2010 “for service to spatial information and natural resource management through leadership roles within a range of public sector agencies”.
It is difficult, but necessary, to separate Warwick’s role as Surveyor-General from his overarching position as Director-General of LPMA. It was in undertaking the duties of this latter role that he made an uncharacteristic error in contracting to purchase a property during a government’s caretaker mode before a State election. Whilst the violation of caretaker provisions is not a criminal offence, the resultant enquiry by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) led to Warwick’s resignation as Surveyor-General, Registrar-General and Soil Conservation Commissioner on 30 June 2011. Although the ICAC found that there was no evidence that the sale of the property, Currawong, resulted in any corrupt benefit to anyone or that the price paid was unreasonable, on 21 July 2011 after 41 years’ service Warwick was removed from holding any NSW public sector office. The charges against him were ultimately dismissed in 2013 but the magistrate ordered that he serve a 12-month good behaviour bond for a separate charge of misleading the ICAC.
At a 2014 investigation by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), it was found that the transaction “involved no financial impropriety. It may even have been laudable that it was bought for the public” and that there was no financial profit or advantage to Warwick or any other person. The investigation also concluded that the purchase was a commercially proper transaction and there was no evidence that Warwick had intentionally bought the land without authority.
In spite of these findings, Warwick was stripped of his Order of Australia and his Fellowship of RICS. One week prior to Warwick’s death from cancer in 2019, the Institution of Surveyors NSW suspended his Honorary Fellowship for six months - a final “Et tu, Brute” moment in what was literally the dying stages of a controversial life.
Warwick’s legacy lives on through today’s digital and spatial world; the people he inspired; the enduring friendships; those who benefited through his advice and actions; the legislation reform he initiated; the institutions established or revitalised for the better and the achievements he made which rank him as one of the most significant of the New South Wales Surveyors-General.
Warwick Arthur Watkins died on 12 November 2019. He is survived by his loving wife Elaine and children Jody, Penny and Peter and 6 grandchildren.
Contributor: Mark Gordon
Submitted by: Bob Harrison OAM
