Out of five sons in the Coney family of Melbourne, Australia, two are lawyers. Peter Coney said: "I realized from legal studies in high school how pervasive the law is in society. It's something intangible that shapes the way people behave. The influence of my brother, who was already practicing, encouraged me to go on to law school."
His mother influenced him in a different but not conflicting direction. "As an assistant she spent 30 years at a nursing home. I volunteered when I was about 14 to help old people, and continued until I finished university. When I came to Kyushu on a Ministry of Education scholarship, I volunteered there. Now in Tokyo I go every other Saturday morning to a day care center to help with the old people."
Always a bright, achieving student, when he was 17 in 1988 Peter went to Indonesia on an international exchange year program. He learned the Indonesian language, and made friends he has kept and counts as his closest in the world. He might have made Indonesian studies his specialty, but his enthusiasm for karate drew him to Japan. During the 1990s he came to the faculty of law at Kyushu University, and progressed in Japanese language proficiency. He took his degrees in law and arts from Melbourne.