Dr John Mackenzie has been a Newcastle City Councillor since 2017. He is a social scientist and policy consultant with fifteen years’ experience in academic, government and consulting roles. John has worked around the country on policy initiatives that bring communities together to find solutions to complex, divisive and intractable natural resource management problems, such as water allocation in the Murray-Darling Basin and Indigenous water rights in Cape York and the Kimberley.
As a Councillor, Dr Mackenzie has championed participatory, smart urban planning that supports the just transition of Newcastle towards climate resilience. He chairs Newcastle’s Liveable City Committee, guiding Council initiatives on planning, climate, environment, heritage, active transport and urban forestry. He is Chair of the Building Better Cities Committee, the Cycleways Advisory Group, and former co-chair of the Environment Committee. He represents the City of Newcastle on the Hunter and Central Coast Joint Regional Planning Panel.
