Four days of events, seminars, concerts, films and exhibitions, all inspired by Patrick White's iconic novel VOSS (1956).
Thursday 14 to Sunday 17 May 2009
Artist Biographies
Barry Jones
Leichhardt Dinner, Friday 15 May
[prev.] A long-time member of the Australian Labor Party, Jones was elected to the Victorian parliament in 1972 and moved to the federal parliament in 1977. He held several ministerial positions from 1983 to 1990 in the Hawke Labor government. His intellectual credentials as Minister for Science were demonstrated in his widely-read 1982 book, Sleepers Wake: Technology and the Future of Work, but his goals were often frustrated by the government's other priorities.
No longer a minister after 1990, Jones was National President of the ALP from 1992 to 2000 and again in 2005-06. The wide range of his interests was reflected in his publications (including Barry Jones' Dictionary of World Biography) and his service for national and international organisations. He was deputy chairman of the Constitutional Convention on the Republic in 1997-98, president of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, and an executive board member of UNESCO, among many other appointments.
Jones was named as a National Living Treasure by the National Trust. His name is recognised in Barry Jones Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory and Yalkaparidon jonesi, an extinct marsupial. In 2005 he became a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne.
THURSDAY 14 MAY |
