Phillip Adams

Phillip Adams

Position: Friend
School and/or Centres: Freilich Project for the Study of Bigotry

Better to have appalling ideas out in the open so that they can be confronted and countered.

Presents Late Night Live, on ABC Radio National. He is the author of over 20 books, including The Unspeakable Adams, Adams Versus God, Talkback, Retreat From Tolerance and A Billion Voices. His writing has appeared in many of Australia's most influential publications and he has been a contributor to The Times and The Financial Times in London, and to the New York Times. He regularly contributes to The Australian. His films include The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, The Getting of Wisdom, Don's Party, Lonely Hearts and We of the Never Never. Adams' Australia was part of BBC TV's contribution to Australia's bicentennial celebrations. Other TV programs include two series of The Big Questions with Professor Paul Davies, and Death and Destiny, filmed in Egypt with Paul Cox.

He currently chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Mind at Sydney University and the Australian National University. His many board memberships include the Festivals of Ideas in Adelaide and Brisbane and the Families in Distress Foundation.

Other board memberships have included the Museum of Australia, Greenpeace Australia, CARE Australia, the Australian Children's Television Foundation, Film Victoria and the Anti-Football League. He was co-founder of the Australian Skeptics.

As well as two Orders of Australia, Phillip was Australian Humanist of the Year (1987), Republican of the Year 2005, and received the Longford Award, the film industry's highest accolade, in 1981, the same year that he was appointed Senior Anzac Fellow. He is a recipient of the Henry Lawson Arts Award (1987) and in 1998, the National Trust elected him one of Australia's 100 Living National Treasures.