Vale Marg White

26 February 2025

Marjorie Irene White (just call me Marg) died on 18 December 2024. She was the doyen and major organiser of the Melbourne activists of MOP UP (Movement Opposed to the Promotion of Unhealthy Products) and later BUGA UP (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions). The difference between the two groups was that MOP UP confined itself to legal activities, and BUGA UP did not.

Marg was born in 1930 in Macksville, the only child of Frank and Irene Macrae. Frank was a farmer, who took Marg everywhere he went, so she developed a handy range of practical skills and good self confidence Her mother was a schoolteacher and she helped her mother and acquired a love of teaching.

They moved to Kendal in 1937 and she was somewhat protected from the Depression as her father could grow food and her mother’s teaching job remained. Later Kendal, a town of only 600 people, was where the troop trains stopped on their way to northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. She was a popular youngster as she took treats to the troops. Frank bought a small weekender at Bonny Hills where the family spent holidays. He later retired there.

She was very musical and a good student, topping NSW in geography and going on to Uni in Armidale and then Sydney Uni where she did a BA and Dip Ed and specialised in early childhood education, believing that lessons learned early were the most important. She met her future husband, David Ogilvie White, who had got into medical school at 16, but was more interested in playing chess. She pushed him to do more work and actually pass. They married in 1954 and went to ANU in Canberra where she met Bob Hawke and Hazel, resulting in a lifelong friendship. Consistent with her idea that everyone should reach their full potential she encouraged Hazel to get a degree when Bob was not keen on this. They remained great friends, with Bob and Hazel staying with them in Melbourne. David’s career blossomed and he rose in the academic ranks becoming Professor of Virology and head of Infectious Diseases at Melbourne University.

She became involved with MOP UP (Movement Opposed to the Promotion of Unhealthy Products) and had quite a large corps of medical students who were keen to help. Some of their stunts were very effective. MOP UP made a graveyard with satiric names based on tobacco brands and handed out leaflets outside the Marlboro Australian Tennis. The sponsorship was dropped in 1985. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was met with a group of protesters in black tie outfits playing mock instruments as ‘The Royal Carcinogenic Orchestra.’ They also dropped their Benson and Hedges sponsorship. MOP UP continued street theatre and leafleting while BUGA UP refaced cigarette billboards, and occasionally alcohol or offensively sexist ones. Marg quietly worked as an organiser, but not merely of the activists, keeping in contact with the political and medical establishments, writing letters and encouraging progressive initiatives.

She was happy to contribute directly to the BUGA UP campaign; standing at a tram stop in a houndstooth tweed suit, complete with cape, she would reface the cigarette ad on an arriving tram, then stand back, spray can under her cape looking like the super-respectable middle aged schoolteacher that she was. If you were getting on or off the tram or blinked you would have missed it.

At that time the tobacco industry used ‘shop panels’, cigarette ads about 50x90cm stuck on each side of the doors of convenience stores with two-sided tape. They stuck well enough, but could be prised off easily with either a claw hammer or small jemmy. Marg went out with an activist one night to clean up the shop panels which her companion removed and stacked in the backseat of her car. There were few security guards and no CCTV cameras in the mid 1980s, but they were spotted and hailed. Her companion ran off and she drove away, but the Police had been alerted, so she was chased with Police lights flashing and sirens blaring. She pulled over and the officer who came to car window was flabbergasted to see a respectable grey-haired woman. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘I am just on my way to pick up my daughter from the ballet’ answered Marg calmly. ‘Oh, sorry lady’, said the Policeman. The story goes that he got a hard time back at the station and was told, ‘Yes, that was her; that is the exact description’. Meanwhile Marg hurried home and put the shop panels under the house in case the police returned. They never did.

Marg was a philanthropist and gave money to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Ballet, as well as the Australian Conservation Foundation. She was an environmentalist and fought for causes she believed in, successfully funding an expensive QC to stop a canal development at Laurieton in NSW near the family weekender at Bonny Hills. The success of that case became a template for similar residents’ actions.

She was active in many roles in the Australian Democrats and became President of the Victorian division when they were a significant force in Australian politics. At home, she nursed her husband who had liver failure, probably occupationally acquired.

Her greatest achievement is probably the Victorian Tobacco Act of 1987. The Western Australian government had tried to ban tobacco advertising in 1983, but were beaten by sports associations that complained that they would founder without tobacco money. So the Victorian Tobacco Act sought to increase tobacco tax and use the money to buy out the sponsorships of sports, cultural events and all the other entities that had been bought by tobacco, as well as funding medical research and doing health promotion to take up the empty billboards among other initiatives. It was the first Health Promotion Foundation in the world, and the legislation passed by one vote. Nigel Gray, doyen of the Establishment and head of the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria said that the legislation would never have passed without the public support generated by the activist groups, of which Marg was a critically important member.

She is survived by three daughters and two grandchildren.
Marjorie Irene White (just call me Marg) died on 18 December 2024. She was the doyen and major organiser of the Melbourne activists of MOP UP (Movement Opposed to the Promotion of Unhealthy Products) and later BUGA UP (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions). The difference between the two groups was that MOP UP confined itself to legal activities, and BUGA UP did not.

Marg was born in 1930 in Macksville, the only child of Frank and Irene Macrae. Frank was a farmer, who took Marg everywhere he went, so she developed a handy range of practical skills and good self confidence Her mother was a schoolteacher and she helped her mother and acquired a love of teaching.

They moved to Kendal in 1937 and she was somewhat protected from the Depression as her father could grow food and her mother’s teaching job remained. Later Kendal, a town of only 600 people, was where the troop trains stopped on their way to northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. She was a popular youngster as she took treats to the troops. Frank bought a small weekender at Bonny Hills where the family spent holidays. He later retired there.

She was very musical and a good student, topping NSW in geography and going on to Uni in Armidale and then Sydney Uni where she did a BA and Dip Ed and specialised in early childhood education, believing that lessons learned early were the most important. She met her future husband, David Ogilvie White, who had got into medical school at 16, but was more interested in playing chess. She pushed him to do more work and actually pass. They married in 1954 and went to ANU in Canberra where she met Bob Hawke and Hazel, resulting in a lifelong friendship. Consistent with her idea that everyone should reach their full potential she encouraged Hazel to get a degree when Bob was not keen on this. They remained great friends, with Bob and Hazel staying with them in Melbourne. David’s career blossomed and he rose in the academic ranks becoming Professor of Virology and head of Infectious Diseases at Melbourne University.

She became involved with MOP UP (Movement Opposed to the Promotion of Unhealthy Products) and had quite a large corps of medical students who were keen to help. Some of their stunts were very effective. MOP UP made a graveyard with satiric names based on tobacco brands and handed out leaflets outside the Marlboro Australian Tennis. The sponsorship was dropped in 1985. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was met with a group of protesters in black tie outfits playing mock instruments as ‘The Royal Carcinogenic Orchestra.’ They also dropped their Benson and Hedges sponsorship. MOP UP continued street theatre and leafleting while BUGA UP refaced cigarette billboards, and occasionally alcohol or offensively sexist ones. Marg quietly worked as an organiser, but not merely of the activists, keeping in contact with the political and medical establishments, writing letters and encouraging progressive initiatives.

She was happy to contribute directly to the BUGA UP campaign; standing at a tram stop in a houndstooth tweed suit, complete with cape, she would reface the cigarette ad on an arriving tram, then stand back, spray can under her cape looking like the super-respectable middle aged schoolteacher that she was. If you were getting on or off the tram or blinked you would have missed it.

At that time the tobacco industry used ‘shop panels’, cigarette ads about 50x90cm stuck on each side of the doors of convenience stores with two-sided tape. They stuck well enough, but could be prised off easily with either a claw hammer or small jemmy. Marg went out with an activist one night to clean up the shop panels which her companion removed and stacked in the backseat of her car. There were few security guards and no CCTV cameras in the mid 1980s, but they were spotted and hailed. Her companion ran off and she drove away, but the Police had been alerted, so she was chased with Police lights flashing and sirens blaring. She pulled over and the officer who came to car window was flabbergasted to see a respectable grey-haired woman. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘I am just on my way to pick up my daughter from the ballet’ answered Marg calmly. ‘Oh, sorry lady’, said the Policeman. The story goes that he got a hard time back at the station and was told, ‘Yes, that was her; that is the exact description’. Meanwhile Marg hurried home and put the shop panels under the house in case the police returned. They never did.

Marg was a philanthropist and gave money to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Ballet, as well as the Australian Conservation Foundation. She was an environmentalist and fought for causes she believed in, successfully funding an expensive QC to stop a canal development at Laurieton in NSW near the family weekender at Bonny Hills. The success of that case became a template for similar residents’ actions.

She was active in many roles in the Australian Democrats and became President of the Victorian division when they were a significant force in Australian politics. At home, she nursed her husband who had liver failure, probably occupationally acquired.

Her greatest achievement is probably the Victorian Tobacco Act of 1987. The Western Australian government had tried to ban tobacco advertising in 1983, but were beaten by sports associations that complained that they would founder without tobacco money. So the Victorian Tobacco Act sought to increase tobacco tax and use the money to buy out the sponsorships of sports, cultural events and all the other entities that had been bought by tobacco, as well as funding medical research and doing health promotion to take up the empty billboards among other initiatives. It was the first Health Promotion Foundation in the world, and the legislation passed by one vote. Nigel Gray, doyen of the Establishment and head of the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria said that the legislation would never have passed without the public support generated by the activist groups, of which Marg was a critically important member.

She is survived by three daughters and two grandchildren.