Page 4245 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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A true friend does not hesitate to tell someone when he thinks they are off the rails. I know that some people here, apart from me, have been on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing from Peter Harrison; but at the same time he was also most generous in his praise when he felt people were acting appropriately and in a principled way.
It is difficult for somebody like me to say farewell to such a great man and such a good friend. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be in this Assembly. One of the reasons that I am here is through the influence of Peter Harrison and I am grateful to have the opportunity to be able, in a small way, to express my thanks to him.
MR JENSEN (3.32): Mr Speaker, like Mr Moore, I also knew Peter Harrison quite well. He was well known to all members of the Rally, particularly those such as my colleague, Bernard Collaery, who knew him even before I did and before I became involved in the Rally. We worked hard to develop policies on planning and leasehold matters and an appeals process for planning. These, I would suggest, were reflected in the Residents Rally policies and have subsequently been reflected in the policies of the Government. Some would argue that some of the implementation of all those policies has not been as Peter would wish, but I would suggest that there is much of Peter Harrison in the views that have been carried into those policies.
It is true that Peter Harrison wrote to members of the Rally and I, in fact, corresponded a number of times with him. I had a number of phone conversations with him and I think Michael is well aware of the sort of tongue-lashing that Peter Harrison was able to dish out. I can assure you that I copped one or two in my time during the discussions that I had with him. But I valued Peter,s views, as did my colleagues. I can assure Mr Moore that once again I will reread that correspondence that Peter sent to me.
I was privileged to be present at the funeral of Peter Harrison and to hear the oration about the role that Peter played in the development of the ACT. Mr Speaker, the Y plan that Peter was particularly involved in certainly has presented us with some social challenges. I would suggest that those social challenges have arisen not because of the concept of the Y plan itself but because of the way that that Y plan was put into place. Some political groups within government within the ACT were not prepared to make the hard decisions in relation to the implementation of the offices and other backup that was required for the outer suburbs of Canberra. That probably is one of the tragedies of the development that has taken place. The area that I come from is slowly starting to realise the importance of the necessary infrastructure to back up the suburban outfields, if you like, of a city like Canberra. It is unfortunate that, in fact, because of the lack of work in
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