Eulogy - Part 2

School and other activities

Peter had no English on arrival in Australia but quickly became proficient. He attended primary schools at Woollahra and South Coogee. To fund his love of Saturday matinee movies, Peter became a marble “hustler”, playing marbles, winning and selling them back to the previous owners for less than the cost of new ones. This proved lucrative enough to help fund tuck shop purchases as well as the 6 pence it cost for the movie tickets. He said that bringing salami and capsicum sandwiches for lunch, while delicious, were not considered appropriate food by his peers, so he had to develop a taste for chip butties and fund them with his wins at marbles. From a photos around this time, I suspect he ate both the chip butties and the salami sandwiches!

Peter attended Randwick Boy's High School for five years. In his opinion he was not very successful at school. He managed to get good marks in English, History and languages. English and History, French, German and Latin were his main subjects along with Maths I and II, the sciences and Music. He went to Vaucluse High for his last year and worked hard, becoming Dux of the school, so he then gained entry into Law school at the University of Sydney. He also won the Goethe prize for German language on at least one occasion.

Living at Bondi Beach, Peter spent many hours at the pool and the beach, learning to swim.

“Life at the beach was a novelty for a boy who came from Budapest. The sea was eternally fascinating and scary. But my mother insisted I learn to swim and I did so, by having a few lessons and watching what the others did; later spending a lot of time down at the pool or beach on hot summer days. I can recall one time when I left home early in the morning on a weekend to go to the beach. It was a really lovely day. My parents probably expected me to come home for lunch and when I did not they began to fret and then to really worry. When I came home about 6:30 p.m. the house was surrounded by people: neighbours and the police were all buzzing around excitedly. I casually walked up to my parents and asked what all the fuss was about.

My mother was utterly dumbfounded. She just stood and stared at me and finally managed to utter a question about how I had gotten lost. With a genuinely innocent expression and tone I told her I had not been lost, I had known where I was all the time. I don't think she knew whether to hug me or hit me. Much to my relief she hugged me in the end.”

It always amazed me, in the last decade or so, that even on the most scorching day I could not get Peter into a swimming pool, lake or sea but he said he had had enough of that as a kid and I couldn't entice him.

He said he didn't make friends easily at school and found he had to stand up for himself pretty quickly which he seemed to do with some success. However, there were many friendships which he made at school and he continued to mention those friends to me regularly.

Peter said that some of his teachers, during high school were memorable, often NOT for inspiring hard work or application. One, called Mr Little, was his science teacher. Apparently, he used to pay Peter not to ask questions in class, so he could have uninterrupted time to work on his language courses!

During his high school years Peter “was sent off to” some Jewish youth groups. He says he was very grateful to AZA, one such international youth group affiliated with B'nai B'rith “ as I was able to learn many skills there, starting with how to work on a committee,... leading to organisational skills, secretarial and treasurer's skills and finally to President.

Photo: Class 4c, Randwick Boys High. Peter - 1st row, far right

This is also where he honed his writing skills, editing and contributing to newsletters. All of these capabilities were important to him as a future public servant and in his voluntary work later in life. Later, Peter was elected the NSW and then Australian President of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organisation, also becoming a “Life Governor” for Australia and New Zealand, which was a very rare thing. Peter said “I learned how to organise camps, conventions, car rallies, parties, social events of all kinds simply by doing and succeeding or learning from what we did wrong. I also learnt how to lead others and how to value their contributions and bind them into a popular organisation so that their commitments to each other, to values and to the giving of themselves, paid off.”
Photo: Peter 1969
Peter said the period from the age of 13 through to his 30's were the most fulfilling times he had ever had. Sadly, he left over a major policy disagreement when he put a principle before his own well-being. Later, in 2004 he wrote: “I missed the companionship dreadfully (once I left). I miss the continuity of my work, I miss the people that I bonded with throughout my teenage years and then later through my adult years. They were, for me, the friends of my life...... I miss those days and often look longingly at the pictures of the conventions I attended.... and think back on the people I went through all of this with and remember them with a pang in my heart and a yearning that is indescribable.... I am not likely to experience this again in my life and I have left it too late, I suspect to try again.”

This year however, he did have some contact with a few people from the period and he was gratified to meet with them or have email and phone contact again. I think that this is something many people find, namely, that those late teenage and university years, or early working years are some of the best you can ever hope to have. We just don't realise it at the time and then when we do it is many years later and life has moved on.

However, most of you will know that Peter, was not at all religious and considered everyone on equal terms. He was always interested in people's views, delighting in challenging and questioning their views. But he was not exclusive and, in fact, had a very eclectic network and range of friends, valued colleagues or acquaintances.

University
Peter studied at Sydney University from 1967 to 1974 in Arts/Law and Social Work.

As is often the case, with university came a burgeoning interest extra-curricular activities. In Peter's case it was in jazz, bridge, movies and billiards.
Photo: Graduation in Arts with parents and Pam, 1970

He left Law. Peter said: 'At the law school I was a very poor student, except in Criminal Law and Contract Law. In these subjects I found a considerable amount of enjoyment. They provided mental exercise and an arena for argument. Basically I hated law. I hated moving from the main campus of Sydney University to the Law School in Phillip Street. I hated the subjects. In short I did everything else but work. There was a sense that justice and the law were only distantly related and there was also a problem that in those days conveyancing and divorce law constituted the bread and butter of legal work. Both subjects being dry and boring.”

He looked for another opportunity and found Social Work, about which he said: “My assessment was that this course of study would provide two things for me:1) a livelihood for which there would be an ongoing and continuing need and 2)an interest which did not pall with time.
As it turns out, so far, my assessment has been correct.”

He graduated in Social Work and also returned to further formal study in 1990 to undertake and graduate as a Master of Social Work. However, he was a great believer in continuing education and never stopped learning or improving his skills and knowledge throughout his life.


Work
Peter undertook a range of jobs while at University, including being a Sydney taxi driver, working in retail at Grace Brothers, Milsons Giftware, Cantori Jewellers and Phillipson's Clothing as well as being a clothing commercial salesman for a time. He would often tell me anecdotes from some of these early jobs, claiming, that he could sell almost anything, especially items that were hard to sell. He mentioned that he would take bets from the other shop assistants that he could sell some of the remaindered items to the next few customers. He would then set about showing the customer all the things in the shop and if they were particularly hard to please would say: “Just a moment, I think there's something out the back that's one of a kind, which we haven't put into the shop that would be fabulous on you!” he would then bring in a particularly interesting garment and the customer would invariably walk out, satisfied and with said hideous item!!!

Photo: Peter 1976 in Migrant Services

When he qualified as a Social Worker his first job was in the Migrant Services Section of the then Department of Immigration and, later, Social Security. He assisted refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and the Lebanon. Two of his achievements, about which he could be justly proud, were, firstly, his development, staffing and management of the the first Neighbourhood Information Centre and Neighbourhood Action Centre, known as NIC NAC in East Sydney. The second was the development, and successful testing of an intensive English language program for newly arrived migrants attending school. While this seems self-evident today, the concept of learning English for a period to the exclusion of all other subjects was radical in the early 1970s. However, it was adopted by the then NSW government for all newly arriving migrant children entering the NSW school system. I know that his early refugee experience was absolutely invaluable in informing his work and achievements.

From 1977 to 1982 Peter was promoted to Senior Social Worker in the Department of Social Security, managing and providing social work service in Maroubra, Hornsby, Camperdown, Leichardt and Clarence Street.

For the next 15 years Peter continued in the department finally becoming the Assistant Director of Social Work (second only the to national Director in Canberra) for all social workers. This meant having joint responsibility for over 500 social workers in over 400 locations around the country, with specific responsibility for those in NSW, South Australia and Western Australia.

In 1995 we moved to Canberra and in 1997 Peter was head-hunted within the department (now called Centrelink) to be the Manager of the Knowledge Team which worked on tax reform and payment cycle management information projects, developed records management strategies and policies, as well as developed and distributed software products, amongst other things.

Photo: Peter in 2000

In 2000 he moved to the Information and Technology Change and Integration team and until his retirement due to ill health in May 2006, was variously trouble shooting in a range of areas. These included dealing with audit findings, undertaking negotiations for the IBM computer contract for Centrelink and many other areas which required a quick and strategic assessment and solution.

Peter said he was so lucky, as social work had been his hobby and he was paid for it. Then computers came along and they became his hobby, once more being paid to work on things that were, for him a continuation of his hobbies. This was why he could happily work 14 or more hours a day at work and home and never feel it was a problem or a trial. In this I think he was a rare person, to have found things on which he loved to work.

He met and worked with some wonderful people during his life as a public servant. I understand he was a mentor to a huge number of people and never stinted on sharing knowledge with others. He always seemed so clear and far-sighted about what should be done and how one might achieve the goals at hand. He always gave frank and fearless advice, as he had no fear about the possible consequences, and did not need the approval of others to motivate him. This did not always endear him to others, to say the least..... but, while he believed that his job was to undertake all the tasks he could to ethically and appropriately assist whoever was his manager, his ultimate loyalty was to be ethical, legal and appropriate to the profession, the department and ultimately the Australian public rather than an individual.

Some of his friendships during his working life have remained precious to him. He was without prejudice and gathered many people from diverse backgrounds into his orbit as he thoroughly enjoyed long and philosophical discussions about the backgrounds, views and experiences of people whom he encountered.

While he ultimately was unable to participate very much following his retirement, he maintained a keen interest in what people were doing and what the outcomes were of some of the big projects on which he was involved even in the last few weeks of his life.