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About

Phillip Adams is a prolific and sometimes controversial broadcaster, writer and film-maker. As presenter of Late Night Live for 25 years he has interviewed many thousands of the world’s most influential thinkers – from archaeologists to zoologists.

A foundation member of the Australia Council and chairman of the Film, Radio and Television Board, Phillip has chaired the Australian Film Institute, the Australian Film Commission, Film Australia and the National Australia Day Council. He is a former president of the Victorian Council for the Arts and was foundation chairman of the Commission for the Future. He currently chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Mind at Sydney University and Australian National University and the Australian Centre for Social Innovation.

His countless board memberships include the Festivals of Ideas in Adelaide and Brisbane, the Families in Distress Foundation, 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. He recently became one of the 70 honorary fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has four honorary doctorates from four universities— Sydney, Griffith, Edith Cowan and the University of South Australia.

Phillip lives on a cattle property specialising in the production of chemical-free beef. He is a collector of antiquities, including Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman, Greek and pre-Columbian sculptures and artefacts.

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