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(mellow music)
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I think what the significant thing
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about my interests is the emphasis on complexity,
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on the complexity of the human mind
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and what the human mind is capable of taking on.
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Look, the way in which I developed
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is very much because I was literally a creature of my time.
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I was born in the first third of the 20th century,
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just, only by a few months, but just.
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And that meant that as a child,
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I was exposed to what we called then the Great Depression,
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and I was aware of what was going on in Europe
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and aware of what the Japanese
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were doing in China in the 1930s.
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This is before Pearl Harbour.
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My mother was really, I think, quite embarrassed
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by my expressions of concern about these issues.
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If anything, my support and inspiration
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really came from my grandmother who was a great character,
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but a generation earlier.
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She recognised something in me
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and she was a tremendous enthusiast
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and a tremendous encourager,
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but she had her own siblings
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and they too recognised that there was something,
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that I had some sort of quality
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which ought to be developed.
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So in a way, I'd say that the kind of political philosophy
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that's driven me all my life
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has actually been in my mind
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for more than 70 years, closer to 80 years.
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I started doing law and I worked as a public servant
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in what was called the Title's Office.
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But then later on, I worked briefly for an oil company.
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I find it hard to believe now,
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but as a sort of government representative.
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But then I went into teaching
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and then came back to the law later
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and then went on and became a history lecturer
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at Latrobe University.
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And then from there, I was in legal practice for a while
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and then went into the Victorian State Parliament,
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then after five years in the Victorian Parliament,
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transferred to the Federal Parliament
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and I was there for just on 21 years.
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I was anxious,
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quite anxious to go into the Victorian Parliament
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for one particular reason,
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and that was to ensure the abolition of the death penalty,
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because the death penalty
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had been a very central issue for me
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and the role that I played
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as the Secretary of the Victorian Anti-Hanging Committee.
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So it meant that contributing to the abolition
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when the legislation came through in 1975,
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that was one of the great experiences.
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One of the other things
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was this notion of climate change,
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which you raised a lot earlier
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than anybody else seems to have picked up on it.
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Well, I'm certainly the first person
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in politics to raise the issue.
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In fact, I had done a radio broadcast on it,
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an interview with an English guy
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who was a member of the House of Lords,
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but who was in effect, a scientific journalist
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called Richie Calder.
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And that was as early as 1967.
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So I was aware of it over a very long time.
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But it was something that I wrote about constantly
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and it's an endless preoccupation.
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I've always been a fan of Louise
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and at last, I thought she'd never ask,
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but she said she'd like to do a portrait of me
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and I think it might have been partly triggered off
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because remember she'd won the Archibald Prize
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with her painting of Barry Humphreys,
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who was a near contemporary of mine
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at University of Melbourne.
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So, she did these wonderful drawings
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and then devoted a lot of time to getting the painting
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and getting it absolutely right.
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And then in 2019, out it came,
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and I loved it right from the start.
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When I watched a variety of programmes, quiz programmes,
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which there were a lot,
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it was obvious that I had the kind of memory,
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the kind of skills that would
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mean I'd be fairly satisfactory.
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Of course, I had a very long period
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on "Pick a Box" where I became a household name.
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And for a while, I found that in a way afterwards,
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I used to get a bit irritated
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that you'd often come across people who would say,
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oh, I remember you on "Pick a Box", what are you doing now?
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And I then have to say, well, actually,
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I'm a minister in the Commonwealth Government,
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but to them the most important thing
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was having been on the quizzes.
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Then they'll say, and what you said
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about ideas and about concepts and so on,
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was so important that it stuck in my mind.
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The approach that I used in answering questions,
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the analytical nature of what I was doing,
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that it was not a matter of simply
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searching through a memory bank and something to jump out.
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I had to always think in terms of context,
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what is the context of the question.
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It's a silly question
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to ask Barry Jones who likes complexity,
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but let's try it anyway.
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I sometimes ask our subject,
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what three words would they use to describe themselves?
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Well, I suppose passionate, committed,
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unsatisfied, because I'm always searching out.