Pat Troy died in Canberra on 24 July after a short illness. He was 82. Pat and I were friends for over 40 years, initially meeting through our mutual friend, Hugh Stretton. In recent years, we often had lunch together at JG’s café at the University of New South Wales. Over the years, we talked about all manner of things, and I read many of his writings, especially in recent years when I encouraged him to publish in The Economic and Labour Relations Review (ELRR). His last paper there, ‘A national strategy for a low carbon economy: the contribution of regional development planning’, (ELRR 28(1), 2017), made a significant impact. At the time of his death, he was working on the detailed implications of the proposed strategy for policy. He was also working on a memoir, ‘Patrick Troy: my story’, a personal narrative of his life and times containing vivid accounts of his remarkable family, colleagues and friends, and of episodes, good and bad, at institutions, especially the ANU, for which he worked.
Pat’s extraordinary productivity was maintained consistently over his working life. He was ahead of his time on many fronts of fundamental importance. Along with Noel Butlin, Max Neutze, Hugh Stretton, Alec Ramsay, Tom Uren and Gough Whitlam, Pat was a most original pioneer of urban development in Australia. He did this through public roles in setting up DURD (The Department of Urban and Regional Development) and advising and speech writing for Uren and Whitlam, and through his academic roles at the ANU’s Department of Urban Research. He made many cross-disciplinary contributions through his own authored and edited books and articles, and through conferences and seminars he arranged – Meredith Edwards writes that Pat ‘was brilliant in picking relevant people to ensure quality discussion’ – and the many doctoral and post-doctoral students that he supervised.
At the ANU, Pat Noel Butlin and Max Neutze pioneered urban research, often against fierce opposition which was sometimes corrupt. Stuart Macintyre said of the unit, that it ‘was by any measure an outstanding success … singled out for praise in repeated reviews of the School’. Yet it was closed in 1999, ‘a disgraceful episode … compounded by the appalling treatment of Pat afterwards’. This caused him ‘acute distress’ because it betrayed the proper university ideals he had always lived up to himself. Nevertheless, through all this Pat stood firm and his integrity and courage were shining lights.
Along with his scholarly contributions he was an example par excellence of collegiality, a priceless virtue now virtually gone from the modern university environment. His door was always open, he insisted on breaks for morning coffee together. He encouraged numerous people and colleagues in their work, giving them sage advice and often finding funds and outlets for their work. He was a bon viveur and his meals and parties at well-known Canberra eateries and at the wonderfully hospitable open house that he and Sandy kept at their Canberra home were deservedly famous. He was a devoted family person; the tributes to him from his grandchildren on the sheets handed out at the celebration are immensely moving.
As a university and community citizen, Pat was more than up there with the greats. He leaves a wonderful legacy, not only his pioneering and original scholarly contributions but also as a role model of kindness, humanity, courage and integrity, often allied with crankiness, and as a passionate fighter for justice and well-being. He was always on the side of the underdog, the lesson he absorbed from his family in Western Australia. Behind all this were the selfless love and support of Sandy.
Acknowledgements
In writing this tribute, I have been greatly helped by hearing and subsequently reading the tributes of Meredith Edwards and Stuart Macintyre to Pat at the celebration of Pat’s life on Tuesday 31 July 2018.
