Barry Owen Jones (born 11 October 1932) is an Australian writer, teacher, lawyer, social activist, quiz champion, and former politician in the Australian Labor Party. 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 Owen Jones was born on 11 October 1932 in Geelong, Victoria, and educated at Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne, where he studied arts and law.
Jones began his career as a teacher 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 panellist on 3DB's popular program, Information Please.
In 1965, Jones, along with broadcaster and writer Phillip Adams and acclaimed director Fred Schepisi, campaigned strongly for the establishment of the Swinburne Film and Television School, which became Australia's first film school when founded in 1966.
With his friend Phillip Adams, Jones played a significant role in reviving the Australian feature film industry, serving on the Australian Film Development Corporation 1970–1975, and as foundation chair of the Australian Film and Television School 1973–1975 and chair of the Australian Film Institute 1974–1980.
In June 1968, Jones was appointed as an inaugural member of the Australian Council for the Arts. He was a member until 1973, serving as deputy chair under Dr H. C. (‘Nugget’) Coombs from 1971.
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.
A member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) since 1951, Jones was a Federal candidate in 1955, 1958 and 1963, with a strong interest in education and civil liberties.
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.
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. 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. He was also Minister for Small Business 1987-1990 and for Customs 1988–1990. 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.
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 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.
In 1987 he chaired the OECD Review of the (then) Yugoslavian economy, in Dubrovnik. Jones took part in an international think tank to advise Mikhail Gorbachev on Perestroika, Moscow (June) 1990.
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.
Jones and Ian Sinclair served as co-chairs of the 1998 Constitutional Convention on an Australian republic.