Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the representative of the inner suburbs of Melbourne, I am blessed with many longstanding, dedicated community activists in my electorate—people such as Sandra Joy, Josip Lenger, Jean Hales, Maria Danko, George Hall, Roger Duckworth and Mere Paora Epare, to name just a few. These are people who, often on relatively low incomes, manage to dedicate their lives to the interests of people in the area and participate very actively in the community. But tonight I want to pay tribute especially to one such person who qualifies to be mentioned in that esteemed category—that is, Harold Hamilton.

Harold is a pensioner who was born in Collingwood, in the heart of my electorate. He has lived on the Collingwood public housing estate for many years and has been extremely active in the local community throughout that period. He has particularly been active in the Dight, Abbotsford, Collingwood, Clifton Hill Tenant Association—or DACCHTA, as it is known locally—for over 20 years, and he has held many positions in that organisation’s hierarchy, including chair of the organisation. Harold has been a driving force behind community campaigns, for example, to organise two pedestrian crossings in Collingwood, one outside the high-rise across Hoddle Street, which is the busiest street in Melbourne, and one outside the Collingwood post office. As a result, there have been fewer pedestrians injured in accidents, and there has been a significant net benefit to road safety.

Harold has been active in many issues on the estate over the years, whether the very long and complex battle about the redevelopment of Dight Street, or defending the tenants association and seeking to ensure that the funding of the tenants association continues, or an array of day-to-day maintenance and cleaning issues. He has been an active volunteer at the North Yarra Community Health centre for a number of years, particularly with the men’s group that operates out of the centre. He was particularly prominent in the creation of a very worthwhile oral history of men in Collingwood called When Fish Had Feathers, which I had the privilege of launching a few years ago. Harold has also been an active participant in activities of the Collingwood Neighbourhood House and played a key role in the changeover of management to the Belgium Avenue Neighbourhood House.

In earlier days, Harold Hamilton served actively in the Australian Army in the Korean War. He has also been active in the Collingwood RSL and the Australian Legion of Ex-Service Men and Women. Harold was awarded the national service medal and also, a few years ago, received the Centenary Medal.

As well as these noted achievements of contribution to our community, of service in wartime and as a general citizen on whom others depend, Harold is also something of a poet. He regularly entertains friends, local residents and people like me with poems that are often poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes moving, about Australia’s identity, about our society and sometimes about some reasonably hard-edged political issues.

Since I entered parliament over 13 years ago, like any member of parliament I have attended countless community functions. I think I can say that I have not seen one individual more at community functions than Harold Hamilton. More than anybody else, he is the person I see at community functions quietly representing the community, helping out and doing the right thing.

Harold is dedicated to helping people, to contributing to his local community organisations and to working to make functions successful. He is always there, rarely with any fanfare or any razzamatazz, always contributing, generally not getting any great glory. He has never sought to promote himself particularly. He has never sought to obtain personal benefit. He has never sought to impose himself on others. He contributes constructively to the interests of the community. Harold Hamilton is a classic example of a quiet achiever. I am privileged tonight to be able to give him due recognition in the nation’s parliament as a great contributor to the community of Collingwood, a longstanding, traditional Labor community, as a great representative of his community and as a genuine Aussie quiet achiever.