Barry Jones

Hon Dr Barry Jones AC, has been a public servant, high school teacher, television and radio performer, university lecturer and lawyer. He took a leading role in campaigns to abolish the death penalty and revive the Australian film industry and achieved some reputation as a quiz champion.

MP for Melbourne in the Victorian Legislative Assembly 1972-77, he transferred to the Commonwealth Parliament as MP for Lalor 1977-1998 and was Minister for Science 1983-90, Prices and Consumer Affairs 1987, Small Business 1987-90 and Customs 1988-90.

He served on the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris 1991-95 and was Vice President of the World Heritage Committee 1995-96.

He became National President of the ALP 1992-2000 and 2005-06, was Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Convention 1998 and a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge 2000-01.

Sleepers, Wake! : Technology and the Future of Work was published by Oxford University Press in 1982, a best seller, was translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish and Braille.

His Dictionary of World Biography (1998), enlarged and rewritten, was republished in book form in November 2013 by the Australian National University and is also downloadable as an e-book: http://epress.anu.edu.au/titles/anu-lives-series-in-biography/dictionary-of-world-biography

FTSE (1992), FAHA (1993), FAA (1996), FASSA (2003), he is the only person to have been elected as a Fellow of all four Australian learned academies. He was awarded an AO in 1993, promoted to AC in 2014. He was named by the National Trust in 1998 as one of Australia’s 100 Living National Treasures. He chaired the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission 2001-05 and was elected FACE in 2003. His autobiography, A Thinking Reed, was published in 2006. He chaired the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority 2000-04; 2005-12. His passions include music, literature, painting, sculpture, architecture, photography and travel.