The Hon Dr Barry Jones
AO, FAA, FAHA, FTSE, FASSA, FRSA, FRSV, FAIM
Writer, broadcaster and former Labor Minister

Paper title
Opening Address

Biography
A Member of the House of Representatives for the Victorian Electorate of Lalor 1977-98, in the first three Hawke Governments Barry became Australia's longest serving Science Minister 1983-90. He was a Victorian State MP 1972-77. Barry served as National President of the Australian Labor Party 1992-2000 and 2005-06.

In 1985 Barry became the only Australian Minister invited to address a Summit meeting of the 'Group of Seven' northern industrial powers, in Ottawa. In 1987 he chaired OECD's review of the Yugoslavian economy.

Barry is the only person to have been elected as a Fellow of all four Australian learned Academies: Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE) in 1992, the Humanities (FAHA) in 1993, Science (FAA) in 1996, and Social Sciences (FASSA) in 2003.

His book Sleepers, Wake!: Technology and the Future of Work (Oxford University Press, 1982), having been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish and braille, ran to 26 impressions.

Other books include the Dictionary of World Biography (1994), a best seller, most recently revised in 1998. His autobiography, A Thinking Reed (Allen & Unwin) was published in 2006.

In June 1990 Barry took part in an international think tank invited to investigate 'perestroika' in the USSR and make recommendations to Mikhail Gorbachev.

He served on the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris 1991-95, Vice President, World Heritage Committee 1995-96 and as a consultant for OECD.

In 1999 Barry was appointed an Adjunct Professor at Monash University and elected as a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a Vice Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne in 2005.