Barry Jones (Australian politician)

Barry Owen Jones, (born 11 October 1932), is an Australian polymath, writer, teacher, lawyer, social activist, quiz champion and former politician.

A member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 1950, Jones was a Federal candidate in 1955, 1958 and 1963, with a strong interest in education and civil liberties.

He campaigned against the death penalty throughout the 1960s, particularly against the execution of Ronald Ryan.

He is on the National Trust's list of Australian Living Treasures.

Barry Jones was born in Geelong, Victoria, and educated at Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne, where he studied arts and law.

He began his career as a schoolteacher at Dandenong High School, where he taught for nine years, before becoming a household name as an Australian quiz champion in the 1960s on Bob Dyer's Pick a Box, a radio show from 1948, televised from 1957.

He was known for taking issue with Dyer about certain expected answers, most famously in response to a question about "the first British Governor-General of India", where he pointed out that Warren Hastings was technically only the Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal Presidency.

Jones' appearances on Pick a Box lasted from 1960 to 1968.

Jones tried his hand at broadcasting on Melbourne radio and in 1967 was one of the pioneers of talkback radio, working at 3DB in Melbourne.

His show Talkback to Barry Jones and Mike Walsh's show on Sydney's 2SM were Australia's first talkback shows.

Jones believes that modern talkback shows have a much narrower focus than the original shows.

He says "I was trying to convey to people a sense of what they didn't know rather than simply talk about football or pets. My emphasis was on using talkback as an instrument for exposing people to new ideas and challenging them, rather than just reinforcing the ideas they already held."

Jones was a panelist on 3DB's popular program, Information Please.

In June 1968, Jones was appointed as an inaugural member of the Australian Council for the Arts.

With his friend Phillip Adams, Jones played a significant role in reviving the Australian feature film industry, served on the Australian Film Development Corporation 1970–1975, was foundation chair of the Film and Television School 1973–1975, chaired the Australian Film Institute 1974-1980 and received the Longford Lyell Award for lifetime achievement in 1986.

Jones's political career began in the Victorian Parliament where he represented the electorate of Melbourne as a Labor Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from 1972 to 1977, when he resigned to go into federal politics.

The year before his transfer to federal politics, Jones had unsuccessfully challenged state leader Clyde Holding.

He was a member until 1973, serving as deputy chair under Dr H. C. (‘Nugget’) Coombs from 1971.

Holding too resigned from state politics to go into federal politics in 1977 and both he and Jones would serve as ministers under Bob Hawke.

He was elected to the House of Representatives at the 1977 Australian federal election as the Labor member for the Federal seat of Lalor in Victoria, which he held until his retirement in 1998.

Jones’ Sleepers, Wake!: Technology and the Future of Work, published in 1982 by Oxford University Press, went through four editions and 26 impressions, sold 80,000 copies in Australia and was translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish and Braille.

In 1982 in a speech in Hobart he predicted that by the year 2000 there would be more computers than cars in Tasmania.

The scepticism provoked by the claim was highlighted by former prime minister Julia Gillard as an example of a lack of imagination about the future.

He was Minister for Science in the Hawke government from 1983 to 1990, in which role he ensured the preservation of the CSIRO, and set up the Australia Prize, Questacon and the Commission for the Future.

Due to Sleepers, Wake!, in October 1985 he became the only Australian Minister ever invited to address a G-7 Summit Meeting, held in Meech Lake, Canada.

He was also Minister for Small Business 1987-1990 and for Customs 1988–1990.

In 1987 he chaired the OECD Review of the (then) Yugoslavian economy, in Dubrovnik.

Bill Gates read it; and Deng Xiaoping's daughters Deng Rong (in 1988) and Deng Nan (in 1994) told Jones the book had influenced their father’s thinking.

It was also significant in Korea, Canada and Ireland.

It canvassed the future implications of the information revolution in creating a post-industrial society, and growth of "the Third Age".

In the 1990 Australian federal election, the ALP lost ten seats in Victoria, the centre-left faction was forced to give up two ministries and Jones lost his place in the ministry.

Jones took part in an international think tank to advise Mikhail Gorbachev on Perestroika, Moscow (June) 1990.

In 1992, upon the resignation of Stephen Loosley, elected unopposed following a split vote at National Conference in 1991, he was elected National President of the ALP, serving until 2000.

He was the Vice-President of the World Heritage Committee from 1995 to 1996 and a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris from 1991 until 1995, succeeding Gough Whitlam in both roles.

He became National President again in 2005–2006.

Jones was the chief architect of the ALP's Knowledge Nation education concept, as chair of the Chifley Research Centre's Knowledge Nation Taskforce.

During this time he was also a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia.

On 31 October 2008, Jones was appointed to serve on the board of the Victorian Opera.

He retired in 2015.

He is a strong supporter of the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), the Australian String Quartet and the Flinders Quartet.