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The most influential Australians

By Tony Stephens
January 22 2001

To mark the centenary of Federation and Australia Day, the Herald has compiled a list suggesting the 100 most influential Australians of the century.

The list cannot be definitive. Lists are subjective, since it is not easy to define or measure importance, greatness or influence. Influence is not the same thing as fame. Fame is the state of being widely known or recognised, a celebrity.

To have influence is to be capable of changing, moving, affecting or modifying people and events. The test is whether a person has changed the course of history in some way, whether we see things differently because of what he or she has done.

Elle Macpherson is a celebrity who has influenced many Western people around the world, particularly young women. She made a similar Herald list published five years ago but does not meet today the history factor.

Women are under-represented. The Chinese say "they hold up half the sky", but relatively few made their presence felt in the distribution of power and influence until the last three decades of the 20th century.

There will be a much higher percentage of women in 21st-century lists. Moral judgments are avoided. Not all the 100 are admired. Some are disliked. Several politicians are included, because politicians have the power to influence.

Scientists, some whose names are no longer well known, are included because they have changed the way we live and die. There are inventors, engineers, business leaders, entertainers, soldiers and sportspeople.

Some will argue that there are too many from one group or another; others that there are too few.

In compiling the list, Tony Stephens has drawn on the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the Monash Biographical Dictionary of 20th Century Australia, Ann Atkinson's Dictionary of Famous Australians, the opinions of Herald colleagues and the work of Barry Jones.


Faith Bandler's father was enslaved from what is now Vanuatu to the Australian sugar industry. Bandler, raised at Tumbulgum on the NSW North Coast, fought for the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal citizenship, worked for South Sea Islander rights, was a founding member of the Women's Electoral Lobby and has written six books. "There is a very real place in life today for nuisances," she says. "We must remember the past, earn the privileges of the present and face the future with confidence."

BARTON, EDMUND 1849-1920

Centenary of Federation advertisements suggested that too few Australians knew the name of Australia's first prime minister. Most know now. Barton, born in Glebe, became a leading figure in the push for Federation, prime minister in 1901 and a High Court judge in 1903. Often called Tosspot Toby because of his fondness for a drink, he is seen by historian Geoffrey Bolton as an example of the capacity for flawed individuals to lift their performance in moments of crisis. "There is a nation for a continent and a continent for a nation," Barton said.

BATES, DAISY 1859-1951

Born in Tipperary, Daisy May O'Dwyer had a brief marriage to Breaker Morant, married a drover and worked as a journalist for The Times. Living in tents along the Nullarbor, she studied Aboriginal languages and customs. Her work seems patronising and defeatist now, but she dealt sensitively with cultures previously presented as subhuman. "There are a few fortunate races that have been endowed with cheerfulness as their main characteristic," she said, "the Australian Aborigine being among these."

BEAN, CHARLES 1879-1968

Born in Bathurst, C.E.W.Bean became a Herald journalist and historian and probably did more than anyone to foster a sense of Australian nationhood. He wrote from Gallipoli and France in World War I and edited the official war history, helping to create the Anzac tradition. The Australian War Memorial and the Commonwealth Archives were Bean ideas. He wrote of the "glory" of the First AIF: "It rises, as it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men; and, for their nation, a possession forever."


Born in Melbourne, Blainey has become one of Australia's most popular and, in his public statements, most controversial historians. His 30 books range from corporate history to defining texts such as The Tyranny of Distance, Triumph of the Nomads and, last year, Short History of the World. Controversy raged over his claim that Asian immigration was disrupting Australia's social harmony and his phrase "black armband view of history". He says: "Nationalism is both a vital medicine and a dangerous drug."

BLAMEY, THOMAS 1884-1951

Born near Wagga Wagga, Blamey fought at Gallipoli. He was Victoria's police chief before commanding Allied Land Forces in the south-west Pacific under General Douglas MacArthur and leading the victory at Kokoda. He had character flaws but, as Prime Minister John Curtin said, Australia needed a military leader, not a Sunday school teacher. Receiving the Japanese surrender, he said: "I do not recognise you as an honourable and gallant foe, but you will be treated with due but severe courtesy."

BOYD, ARTHUR 1920-1999

Born in Melbourne, part of perhaps Australia's most artistic family, Boyd touched his individual Australian landscape with religious, mythological and literary themes. Some themes are violent, a striking contrast with the gentle painter. Australian of the Year in 1995 and admired in Britain and the US, he gave his magnificent estate at Bundanon, on the NSW South Coast, to the nation. He said: "We own nothing; all we do is possess things for a short period; you don't even own your wedding ring; nothing."

BRADMAN, DON 1908-2001

Born in Cootamundra, Bradman's test batting average, 99.94, is 30-odd better than the next best. He was the first living Australian to have a museum, at Bowral, dedicated in his name. The New York Times, whose readers rarely see cricket, saluted him as cricket's "unchallenged shining light". He said: "Cricket existed long before I was born. It will be played centuries after my demise. I was privileged to give the public my interpretation of its character in the same way that a pianist might interpret the works of Beethoven."

BRAGG, WILLIAM 1862-1942 and


Born in England, William Henry Bragg became a physics professor in Adelaide, where his son, William Lawrence, was born. The father-and-son team of physicists laid the foundation here and in England for x-ray technology, won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915 and helped put Australian science on the map. Both were knighted. Sir William said: "Going to Australia was like sunshine and fresh invigorating air."

BROWN, BOB 1944-

Born in Oberon, Robert Brown became a doctor and then a conservationist, leading the fight against the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania and spreading environmental consciousness as far as Germany and the Greens Party. Australian of the Year in 1982, he shared in 1990 the US Goldman Foundation's environment prize, the world's richest. "Wild places connect us to the universe," he says. "There are no answers written on stone. But in the stones, the trees, the skies, is fulfilment for humanity."


Born in Traralgon, Victoria, Frank Macfarlane Burnet developed theories on "acquired immunological tolerance" and "clonal selection" that provided bases for modern biotechnology and genetic engineering. He won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1960 and brought the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research an international reputation. He said: "The idea of man as the dominant mammal ... whose whole behaviour tends to be dominated by his own desire for dominance gripped me ... I applied it to everything."


Born in Melbourne, Arthur Augustus Calwell's best claim to lasting influence rests with his immigration ministry after the war, when he introduced widespread immigration from Europe, calling the newcomers "New Australians". He was much less successful as Labor Party leader, although he nearly unseated the Menzies government in 1961. He survived an assassination attempt and was made a papal knight. He said: "Propinquity is everything in national affairs, as in love affairs."


Alice Lynne Murchison was born in Whakatane, New Zealand. Her two-month-old daughter, Azaria Chantel Loren, disappeared at Uluru in 1980. A coroner said the baby had been taken by a dingo. A court later jailed her for murder. Further evidence led to a pardon, although the dingo remains unconvicted. The case, and the movie with Meryl Streep, cautioned Australians against rushing to judgment and to doubt the value of forensic evidence. She said: "My God! My God! The dingo's got my baby."

CHIFLEY, BEN 1885-1951

Born in Bathurst, Joseph Benedict Chifley started work at 15. He became a train driver, treasurer, minister for postwar reconstruction and prime minister, establishing the Snowy Mountains scheme, Australian Airlines and the ANU. He strove to better the lot of ordinary people with a combination of public and private enterprise. He said: "We have a great objective - the light on the hill - which we aim to reach by working for the betterment of mankind ... If it were not for that, the labour movement would not be worth fighting for."


Born in Sydney, Vere Gordon Childe was a socialist and political theorist who wrote How Labour Governs. He turned to archaeology, writing The Dawn of European Civilisation. As a professor in Edinburgh he developed his theory that different cultures could combine as new, complex civilisations. He committed suicide by jumping from Govett's Leap. He said: "Progress is real if discontinuous.The upward curve resolves itself into a series of troughs and crests. But ... each crest out-tops its last precursor."

CLARK, MANNING 1915-1991

Born in Sydney, Charles Manning Hope Clark played a vital role in encouraging the study of Australian history when it had been overlooked. Critics said his passionate, moral tone cost him factual accuracy but he probably turned more Australians to history than any other historian. His six-volume A History of Australia is monumental, even if it neglects Aborigines and women. He said: "Men make their own history more wisely when they know what that history has been about."

COLES, GEORGE 1885-1997

Born one of 10 children at Jung Jung, Victoria, he joined a grocery store and then bought his father's store. He was wounded at Villers Bretonneux in World War I and lost two brothers in the war. However, with brother Arthur, he built a nationwide chain of stores, G.J.Coles & Co, even expanding during the Depression. More recently, the company linked with the American K mart and took over Myer. Knighted for his charity work, he had said of his stores: "Nothing over 2/6."


Conway grew up on a farm in western NSW, the source of her book, The Road from Coorain. She earned a Harvard doctorate, at least 25 honorary doctorates from around the world, became the first woman president of Smith College, USA, a professor at MIT, Boston, and the first female chair of a major Australian company, Lend Lease. She said: "I encourage women in management to take a course in military history, a course in corporate strategy, watch those wretched football games every weekend and learn the language."

COOMBS, NUGGET 1906-1997

Born in Kalamunda, Western Australia, Herbert Cole "Nugget" Coombs was director-general of postwar reconstruction, Reserve Bank governor and advised seven prime ministers from Curtin to Whitlam. The self-styled "activist and interferer" shaped policy and community attitudes on education, the arts and Aboriginal affairs. He told his son, John, on his deathbed: "Don't let them be gloomy, son, I have had a great innings." His funeral request: "Bach at the beginning, Waltzing Matilda at the end, and no God-bothering in between."

CRAWFORD, JOHN 1910-1984

Born in Sydney, John Grenfell Crawford lectured in agricultural economics at Sydney University. As Trade Department secretary, he worked with the Country Party's John McEwen to secure the 1957 Japan-Australia trade agreement, the foundation of Australia's postwar economic success, and towards increasing exports. He was knighted and received Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure. He said: "Menzies and McEwen's decision to begin talking [to Japan] was very courageous - and I ... advised them to."

CURTIN, JOHN 1885-1945

Born in Melbourne, John Joseph Curtin edited a newspaper in Perth, reformed his alcoholism and united the Labor movement before becoming prime minister in 1941, when he mobilised the nation. Anguished, sleepless and chain-smoking, he looked to America, stood up to Churchill over the Japanese threat and died in office within sight of victory. He said: "Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom."

DARCY, LES 1895-1917

Born in Stradbroke, NSW, James Leslie Darcy beat the world's best boxers and tried to make his family secure by fighting in America before enlisting for war. Instead, he was branded a deserter and died of septicemia, his fiancee at his bedside. A tragic young hero, he became part of the national psyche, much like those killed at Gallipoli. Huge funeral services were held in San Francisco, Maitland and Sydney, the last one of Australia's biggest. He said on his deathbed: "The count is seven ... but they'll never count 10 over me."

D'ARCY, WILLIAM 1849-1917

Born in England, William Knox D'Arcy made his first fortune by investing in the Mount Morgan gold mine. In 1901 he financed the search for Persian oil, selling out to Burmah Oil, which found the world's biggest oilfield in 1908, leading to British Petroleum. D'Arcy remained on BP's board until his death. He said, nearly 100 years ago: "I believe the motor car will revolutionise our means of transport. There will be horseless omnibuses to carry the people and horseless carts to transport their goods."


Born in London, Davies became a professor of mathematical physics and then of natural philosophy in Adelaide. He has written more than 20 books including The Edge of Infinity and The Mind of God, and has been been described as the best science writer on either side of the Atlantic. His special area of inquiry has to do with faith and science. Winner of a $1.45 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, he says: "Science thrives on mystery. When we solve one thing we are presented with another."

DEAKIN, ALFRED 1856-1919

Born in Melbourne, Deakin graduated in law, entered journalism, promoted federation, became attorney-general in Edmund Barton's first Federal government and was prime minister three times from 1903. Broadly liberal, he introduced social welfare measures, industrial arbitration and tariff protection, but was interested in spiritualism and, it seemed, would rather have been a philosopher-poet. He said of the New Year, 1901: "It was actually, in a sense, the birthday of a whole people."


Deane led the High Court push to recognise implied rights of the individual in the Constitution. His joint judgment with Mary Gaudron in the Mabo case reflected on the national legacy of "unutterable shame" over the dispossession and degradation of indigenous people. As Governor-General, he has tried to balance his concern for reconciliation, multiculturalism and the disadvantaged with the need to be above politics. He says: "The past is never fully gone. It is absorbed into the present and the future. It stays to shape what we are and what we do."

DERRICK, DIVER 1914-1945

Leaving school a larrikin at 14, Thomas Currie Derrick worked at odd jobs through the Depression and toiled in a vineyard before enlisting for World War II. He fought with distinction at Tobruk, won a Distinguished Conduct Medal at Tel el Eisa and the VC in New Guinea for single-handedly wiping out 10 enemy machine-gun posts in previously impenetrable jungle. Shot in Borneo, he continued directing his troops before dying. He had said, when ordered to withdraw: "Bugger the CO."

DIXON, OWEN 1886-1972

Born in Melbourne, Dixon was mentor to a young Robert Menzies. He became one of Australia's greatest High Court judges. Sitting on the court for 35 years, he ensured its prestige and authority. His judgments in the 1930s were vital to the development of the principles of federal government and the supremacy of federal authority. Lord Evershed, of the British Court of Appeals, described him as "the greatest judge and lawyer in the world". Dixon said: "Stealing from one author is plagiarism. Stealing from three authors is research."


Born in Brisbane, Doherty studied veterinary science and read Sartre and Hemingway, wondering whether to become a man of thought or action. Turning to medicine, he won a Nobel Prize in 1996 with Rolf Zinkernagel for research into immune systems carried out at the ANU's John Curtin School. Their work revolutionised understanding of how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells, making new vaccines possible. He said: "I don't believe in geniuses all that much. Many of us have moments of genius, but few are consistent."

DUNLOP, WEARY 1907-1993

Born in Benalla, Victoria, Ernest Edward "Weary" Dunlop became a surgeon, Australian rugby player and boxer. His tireless work made him a hero in World War II, along with other doctors, on the Burma-Thailand "death railway", where he defied Japanese officers to save PoWs. He promoted friendship between Australia and Asian nations and was Australian of the Year in 1977. He said of the prisoners, 50 years after the war: "To this day I feel uplifted and borne up by their unquenchable spirit and patient endurance of suffering."

EVATT, DOC 1894-1965

Born in Maitland, Herbert Vere "Doc" Evatt was appointed to the High Court at 36, entered Federal Parliament 10 years later, became attorney-general and minister for external affairs. He played a part in the establishment of the United Nations, becoming first president of the General Assembly, the first Australian to hold a top international post. He nearly led Labor to victory in 1954, but then led them to the Split and an electoral wilderness. He said: "Freedom from fear can never be separated from freedom from want."


Born in England, William James Farrer was convinced that the Australian wheat industry's problems were caused by unsuitable overseas strains. He strove to develop local varieties, crossing hundreds of different breeds every year. High-yielding Federation wheat was among varieties he produced to establish wheat as a major part of Australian agriculture and to make better the world's bread. He said: "I want to think that when I die my life will not have been wasted."

FLOREY, HOWARD 1898-1968

Born in Adelaide, Howard Walter Florey was the first Australian to win the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine, sharing it in 1945 with Ernst Chain and Alexander Fleming, for purifying penicillin and developing its medical uses. This helped save millions of lives. The first Australian president of Britain's Royal Society, he said: "We sat up through the night injecting penicillin [into mice] ... it was one of the more exciting moments when we found in the morning that all the untreated mice were dead and all the penicillin-treated ones alive."

FLYNN, JOHN 1880-1951

Born in Moliagul, Victoria, Flynn became a Presbyterian minister in the Northern Territory. He organised nursing homes and welfare centres and, in 1928, set up what was to become the Royal Flying Doctor Service, based in Cloncurry, Queensland. He set up the Australian Inland Mission, providing a mantle of safety across the outback, and became known as Flynn of the Inland. His magazine, The Inlander, campaigned for Australia's "fringe-dwellers". He said: "If you start an idea, nothing can stop it."


Born in Balmain, Fraser became the first woman to swim the 100m in under a minute and the only person to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the same event, the 100m freestyle. She might well have won a fourth, if not banned after clashing with swimming officials. Named last year as the world's greatest living female in water sports of the century, she said: "It's an example to the younger people of the next century: it doesn't matter where you come from, if you put the time and effort into a sport you love, you can achieve."


Born in Melbourne the son of a grazier and grandson of a Federation politician, Fraser went to Oxford and into politics, where his earnestness brought him the name, The Prefect. He became prime minister in the 1975 constitutional crisis, using the Senate to block Supply. Today's Liberals criticise him for having wasted a chance to introduce economic reforms but he has won respect worldwide for his stance on human rights. He said: "There is within me some part of the metaphysic and thus I would add that life is not meant to be easy."


Born in Mackay, Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman's grandmother was taken from her mother and moved to Palm Island. Her mother was taken from Palm Island. Freeman survived upheavals to become world 400m champion and win the 2000 Olympic gold medal. It was Australia's longest minute, watched live by 112,524 people and millions on TV. She carried a nation's soul on her back and went some way to uniting the nation. She said: "I know I have made a lot of people happy, from a lot of different backgrounds who call Australia home."

FYSH, HUDSON 1895-1974

Born in Launceston, Wilmot Hudson Fysh fought at Gallipoli. A pilot who force-landed to fill his radiator, Fysh began - with fellow Australian Flying Corps officer Paul McGinness - Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services. This became Qantas Empire Airways in 1934 after opening up the England route. He was managing director from 1923, even after the government took over the company. He said in 1959: "In 10 years we will be flying at 18,000mph and at 70,000ft."

GARRAN, ROBERT 1867-1957

Born in Sydney, Robert Randolph Garran became a lawyer and worked, with Edmund Barton, for Federation. He wrote, with John Quick, Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, and became Australia's first public servant, designing legislation and establishing departments. Retiring in 1932, he had counselled 16 governments. He said of pre-Federation Sydney: "Victorians, inhabiting a 'cabbage garden' to the south, were people to be mistrusted. They were guilty of the treason of seceding from NSW."


Born in Melbourne, Goldstein became president of the Women's Suffrage League in 1899. Her newspapers reached an international audience, her research on poor families was used in the Harvester Judgment of 1907, which set a basic wage, she helped establish separate children's courts and attended the Geneva Women's Peace Conference in 1919. She said: "The labour cause in its widest sense is the cause of humanity, so is the woman's cause; but labour seeks to reach the goal by mainly material means; women place a higher value on the spiritual."


Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch helped launch modern feminism internationally from 1970 and became a bestseller around the world. The Melbourne-born Greer has broadened her targets to write about women in art and literature, her father and menopause. Britain's Observer called her a loose cannon whose great gift was to make people think freshly. She said: "The concept of the castration of women is the key to the book...Women's sexuality has been repressed because it served no social or domestic function."


Born in Wales, he matriculated to Sydney University at 15, graduated with honours at 18 and joined the Queensland Bar. He became Queensland's attorney-general at 29 and premier at 38, and then Chief Justice of Queensland, and the first Chief Justice of the High Court. He was the first Australian translator of Dante. A principal architect of the Federal Constitution, Griffith said: "The people of Australia know little of one another. We need a Federal system for the moral effect it will have - not a mere union for defence and fiscal objects, but the establishment of an Australian nation."


Born in Sydney, Reginald Grundy became a sports broadcaster, ran radio quizzes and, in 1960, hosted an early Australian television quiz show, Wheel of Fortune. He moved into TV soap operas, such as Sons and Daughters, and produced game programs for television in the United States. Having reversed the cultural imperialism of Britain and America, he lives reclusively in Bermuda, although he visited Sydney for the Olympics in his $100 million, 72-metre mini-liner Boadicea. He said of his TV shows: "I call it parochial internationalism ... People are not all that different."


Born in England, engineer Laurence John Hartnett persuaded General Motors in the United States to grant rights for producing a Holden, the car named after father and son motor body manufacturers in Adelaide, Henry and Edward Holden. Ben Chifley's Labor Government backed the project, and the first Australian car was produced in 1948. He said before his death: "Shocking imagination I have, full of curiosity, and I'm afraid Australia is very conservative. Too many Australians now are frightened of getting their hands dirty."

HAWKE, BOB 1929-

Born in Bordertown, South Australia, Robert James Lee Hawke became leader of the trade union movement. Entering Parliament in 1980, he became Labor leader in 1983 and prime minister that year. He brought business and unions together and showed by winning four elections that Labor could retain power, although his popularity subsequently declined. With the Treasurer, Paul Keating, he took Labor in new directions, deregulating the economy. He said: "I don't want to be any more egotistical than possible. I have total confidence in my own ability."


Born in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Robert Murray Helpmann had an international impact on dance, theatre and film, on and off stage. He was principal dancer with Sadler's Wells, partnering Margot Fonteyn. As a choreographer, he explored Australian and Asian themes and helped bring stars such as Fonteyn and Nureyev to dance with the Australian Ballet. His legacy lives in the creative approach of Graeme Murphy and others. He said: "The trouble with nude dancing is that not everything stops when the music stops."


Born in Fremantle, William Frederick Heseltine became the private secretary of the then prime minister, Robert Menzies, and a Liberal Party official before joining the staff of Buckingham Palace where he rose to be the Queen's private secretary. She called him "my Bill" and made him Sir William. He is credited with popularising the royal family by putting them on television and introducing in 1970 the royal street "walkabout". He said: "It was decided that the net should be thrown wider so more people could meet and see the royal family."

HIGGINS, HENRY 1851-1929

Born in Ireland, Henry Bournes Higgins was elected to the first Federal Parliament. He became Attorney-General in 1904 and a High Court judge. As Conciliation and Arbitration Court president, he handed down his 1907 Harvester judgment that famously established the basic wage doctrine. He said: "The test to be applied in ascertaining what are fair and reasonable conditions of remuneration of labour ... is, in the case of unskilled labourers - what are the normal needs of the average employee, regarded as a human being living in a civilised community".

HOLLOWS, FRED 1930-1993

Born in New Zealand, Frederick Cossom Hollows worked on Aboriginal health issues, pioneering eye treatment programs. His work gave sight to thousands of Australians, Nepalese, Vietnamese and Eritreans, with his foundation setting up lens factories overseas and training eye doctors. He said: "We sit on our muckheaps of production eating caviar and cake ... Meanwhile, the Third World manufactures f--- all. They never produce a surplus and every time there's a drought, a flood or a tornado, people die in their hundreds and thousands."


Born in Sydney, Donald Richmond Horne worked on newspapers, in universities and the arts, becoming a prolific writer and social commentator who promotes ideas on political, artistic, educational, literary and commercial subjects. He believes Australia is a successful and tolerant multicultural liberal-democratic society in need of a public morality. He said in The Lucky Country in 1964: "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck." And: "Politics is both fraud and vision."


Born in Sydney, John Winston Howard became a solicitor before entering Federal Parliament in 1974. He was Treasurer three years later. He led the economic deregulation debate, although the Hawke Labor Government began the work. In Opposition, Howard and Andrew Peacock fought over the Liberal leadership. He gained it in 1985 and regained it in 1995, before taking government from Labor in 1996. Respected for his tenacity and parliamentary performance, he says: "The things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us."


Born in New Zealand, William Hudson became a civil engineer. His disappointed father said: "Bill, that is about all you are bloody good for." He built dams in New Zealand, Scotland and Australia. Commissioner of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority in 1949, the engineer and conservationist built 16 large dams, 145 kilometres of tunnels and seven power stations, transforming inland areas by diverting rivers. He told migrant workers: "You aren't any longer Czechs or Germans, you are men of the Snowy."


Born in Sydney, Robert Studley Forrest Hughes became an art critic in Europe and then with Time magazine. His columns, art books and television programs have made him one of the world's most influential critics. His history of convict transportation to Australia, The Fatal Shore, also attracted worldwide attention. He said: "Space in America had always been optimistic: the more of it you had, the freer you were - 'Go West, young man!' In Australian terms, to go west was to die, and space itself was the jail."

HUGHES, BILLY 1862-1952

Born in England, William Morris Hughes became prime minister in 1915, left the Labor Party after losing the conscription referendum and headed various Nationalist governments. He badgered Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson at the peace conference after World War I, saying he represented 60,000 dead, and became known as "the Little Digger". He said, on being asked about his leadership of the United Australia Party: "Look here, brother, the question of Jesus Christ as leader never arises in the midst of his apostles."


Born in Melbourne, John Barry Humphries is famed for his one-man satirical theatre and characters such as Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He also created the Australian antihero Barry McKenzie. He has made Australians, and others, look at themselves. They don't always find an attractive image, but they usually laugh. He said: "I was down by Manly pier, drinking tubes of ice cold beer, with a bucket full of prawns upon me knee. But when I'd swallowed the last prawn, I had a technicolour yawn, and I chundered in the old Pacific sea."


Born in Sydney, Paul John Keating managed a rock band but moved quickly to politics. As treasurer, he presided over economic deregulation, turning around Labor policy. As prime minister, he pursued "big picture" issues such as APEC, an understanding with Indonesia, the republic and reconciliation. He won the 1993 election against most forecasts but lost heavily to John Howard's Coalition in 1996. He said: "If this Government cannot get ... a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for ... We will just end up being ... a banana republic."


Born in Sydney, Thomas Michael Keneally studied for the priesthood before becoming a teacher and writing novels. Exploring moral issues, he won two Miles Franklin awards in the 1960s. Schindler's Ark won the Booker Prize and Steven Spielberg made it into one of the most successful films ever. He contributes to the national debate, particularly on the republic and reconciliation. He said: "In a way, Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back."

KERR, JOHN 1914-1991

Born in Sydney the son of a boilermaker, John Robert Kerr won the Sydney University Law medal, practised industrial law and became Chief Justice of NSW. Gough Whitlam appointed him Governor-General. When Malcolm Fraser blocked Supply to the Whitlam Government in 1975, Kerr had to referee the roughest match in Australian political history. His dismissal of Whitlam still divides Australians. He said: "The basic constitutional issue in such cases is whether or not Parliament has become unworkable."


Born in Brisbane, Charles Edward Kingsford Smith served at Gallipoli and won the Military Cross in France. With Charles Ulm, he made the first trans-Pacific flight in the Southern Cross in 1928. In 1934, with navigator Gordon Taylor, he made the first flight from Australia to America in a single-engine plane. He set a record for an England-Australia flight. Smithy disappeared near Burma. He said: "It was a calm, considered plan to show the world that ocean flying in long hops was a normal development of aviation ... it ceased to be a desperate gamble."

LAWSON, HENRY 1867-1922

Born in Grenfell, Henry Lawson joined his mother, Louisa, and other social radicals in Sydney. He wrote poems and short stories - critics prefer the stories - and dominated the nationalist literary movement. He became a drunk, spending time in hospitals and jails, but continued to inspire affection and to show Australians to themselves. He wrote: "And the sun sank again on the grand Australian bush - the nurse and tutor of eccentric minds, the home of the weird, and of much that is different from things in other lands."


Born in Burra, South Australia, the mining engineer joined BHP in 1904, began the Newcastle steelworks in 1915, became BHP general manager and increased steel production dramatically. Essington directed the production of munitions and aircraft during World War II, helping Australia to mobilise quickly. An autocratic manager, his motto was "I am work". He said in 1951: "There seems to be a lack of discipline today. Discipline ... starts from the top and, like oil, seeps its way to the bottom."

LYONS, ENID 1897-1981

Born in Leesville, Tasmania, Enid Muriel Lyons was a teacher until marrying Joseph Lyons, who was to become prime minister. They had 12 children but she remained politically active and entered Federal Parliament in 1943, one of the first two women in the House of Representatives and, subsequently, the first in Cabinet. After retiring from Canberra she promoted family issues. She said: "I used to think that if I reached heaven and saw so much as one small pair of pants or a little frock hanging on a line, I would turn away and seek rest elsewhere."

MABO, EDDIE 1936-1992

Born on Mer, in the Torres Strait, Eddie Koiki Mabo made up for his lack of education with tenacity and a formidable intellect. Upholding his claim for native title to the Murray Islands, the High Court overturned the doctrine of terra nullius, the legal fiction that Australia was unoccupied before European settlement. Mabo, pronounced Ma'bo with emphasis on the second syllable, died a few months before the judgment. He had said: "My family has occupied the land for hundreds of years before Captain Cook was born."

MacKILLOP, MARY 1842-1909

Born in Melbourne, Mary Helen MacKillop became a governess before founding the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart with Father Julian Tenison Woods. Aiming to educate poor children in the bush, they spread their work among the sick, unmarried mothers and orphans. She became Australia's first candidate for canonisation in 1973. The Vatican is still considering her progress towards sainthood. She said: "Many prejudices are directed against myself, for bishops and priests think me some extraordinary and bold woman."


Born in Beechworth, Victoria, Annie Jean Macnamara became a doctor specialising in the treatment of poliomyelitis. Her discovery, with Macfarlane Burnet, that there was more than one strain of the polio virus, was a step towards development of the vaccine. She pioneered myxomatosis research to combat the rabbit plague, overcoming resistance from the authorities. She rolled her own cigarettes, had a smoker's cough and said of her tenacity and persistence: "Scientists said it was one of Dame Jean's outbursts."

MANNIX, DANIEL 1864-1963

Born in Ireland, Daniel Mannix became Archbishop of Melbourne. He campaigned for State aid to Catholic schools and against conscription during World War I. He built churches and parish schools, fought capitalism and communism and his stance led to B.A. Santamaria's Movement, the Labor split, the formation of the DLP, which Mannix supported, and helped keep Labor in opposition. He said: "As a matter of fact, this [World War I] was a trade war - simply an ordinary trade war."

MAWBY, MAURICE 1904-1977

Born in Broken Hill, Maurice Mawby had to decline a university scholarship to study mining. He developed the flotation process for zinc extraction, was instrumental in finding bauxite at Weipa and in developing the Hamersley, Comalco and Bougainville complexes, one of the boldest ventures ever undertaken by an Australian company. As CRA boss, he spearheaded Australia's dramatic mineral development in the 1960s and '70s. He said: "People are the basis of the mining industry: the technical part is secondary."


Born in England, Douglas Mawson studied engineering and science at Sydney University, went to the Antarctic with Ernest Shackleton and was first, with Edgeworth David, to the South magnetic pole. He led two major expeditions there, enduring heroically in 1911-14. He was largely responsible for Britain ceding part of her Antarctic claim to Australia. He said, on falling into a crevasse: "It was ... a rare temptation to pass from the petty exploration of a planet to the contemplation of vaster worlds beyond."


Born in Sydney, William Griffith McBride became a gynaecologist and medical scientist who linked the drug thalidomide to deformed births. He was 1962 Australian of the Year and won international recognition. Allegations of scientific fraud relating to another anti-nausea drug, Debendox, led to his being struck off, although charges of misconduct in his obstetrics practice were dismissed and he has been readmitted. He said: "I've had some wonderful times and some awful times. Sometimes I've had to feel my pulse to see if I was alive."

McLENNAN, IAN 1909-1998

Born in Mooroopna, Victoria, Ian Munro McLennan joined BHP during the Depression, became general manager in 1950 and chairman in 1971. He broadened BHP into the Big Australian, forging links with international corporations and hiring geologists who found iron ore, manganese and, particularly, Bass Strait oil. This discovery was vital to Australia during the '70s oil crises. He said: "The company has been well served by the people. I hope the people can also say they have been well served by the company."

MELBA, NELLIE 1861-1931

Born in Melbourne as Helen Porter Mitchell, she took lessons in Paris and gained recognition as Gilda in Rigoletto in Brussels in 1887, when she adopted the stage name of Melba, after her home town. She was hailed as the greatest soprano of her age, frequently appearing in European and American opera houses. Manning Clark said she put Australia on the world cultural map. Peach Melba and Melba toast were both named after her. She advised, before a tour of Australia by Clara Butt: "Sing 'em muck. It's all they can understand."

MENZIES, BOB 1894-1978

Born in Jeparit, Victoria, Robert Gordon Menzies became a lawyer, leader of the United Australia Party and prime minister in 1939. Forced out, he founded the Liberal Party and became Australia's longest-serving prime minister, winning seven elections in 17 years from 1949. An effective orator and tactician, he presided over good economic times. He said: "A prime minister exercises his greatest public influence by creating a public impression of himself, hoping all the time that the people will be generous rather than just."


Born in London to Australian parents, Anthony George Maldon Michell became an engineer in Melbourne and wrote the Michell Theorem, later used as a basis for computer programs. In 1905 he took out a patent for the Michell thrust bearing, which revolutionised shipping propulsion, making possible ships as big as the Queen Mary. It was also adopted for German U-boats in World War I. Asked what further engineering developments he might bring, Michell said: "One never knows what might come out of the box."


Born in Chinchilla, Queensland, to Greek migrants who ran a cafe, George Miller daydreamed in the bush, became a doctor and is among the Australian film-makers impressing the world, with films including Mad Max, The Witches of Eastwick, The Year My Voice Broke, Lorenzo's Oil and Babe. He also makes TV series. Introducing Mel Gibson, Mad Max grossed $150 million and became Australia's most influential movie. Miller said: "The films are seen as classic examples of postmodernism, particularly Mad Max 2."

MONASH, JOHN 1865-1931

Born in Melbourne, John Monash graduated in civil engineering, arts and law and pioneered the use of reinforced concrete in bridges. He fought at Gallipoli and his leadership shone on the Western Front, where he helped break the Hindenburg Line. He later became Melbourne University's vice-chancellor. An estimated 250,000 mourners watched his state funeral. He said: "War is not a business in which one can take any pride or pleasure. Its horror, its ghastly inefficiency, its unspeakable cruelty and misery has always appalled me."


Born in Melbourne, Keith Rupert Murdoch went to Oxford before building News Corporation into a major international media empire with newspapers, books, satellite television and film operations in Australia, Asia, Europe and the Americas. He is Australia's most influential international businessman and probably the most influential living Australian. Now a US citizen, he has had close links with leading politicians. He said: "Monopoly is a terrible thing until you have it."


Born in Sydney, George Gilbert Aime Murray went to Oxford, became Glasgow University's professor of Greek at 23 and, later, Oxford's regius professor of Greek. His translations and writings opened up classical Greek literature and culture for generations of English readers and he influenced perceptions of Greek culture. He campaigned for peace. He said: "There has never been a day when I have failed to give thought both to the work for peace and for Hellenism ... one a matter of life and death ... the other ... love for the eternal values."


Born in Austria, Gustav Joseph Nossal graduated in Australia and became professor of medical biology and director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in 1965. Under the immunologist's leadership, the institute led research into cancer and multiple sclerosis. He has had several visiting professorships overseas. Australian of the Year last year, he said: "There can be no excuse for the lucky country that there is a sub-population whose life expectancy is 18 years less than that of 'mainstream' Australians."

OLIPHANT, MARK 1901-2000

Born in Adelaide, physicist Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant worked on secret military radar and atomic research in World War II. Pivotal in sparking the US Manhattan Project, he helped develop the first atomic weapons - and later deeply regretted it. He remained to his death a campaigner against nuclear warfare and environmental degradation and a promoter of Australian science. He said: "I came to appreciate the fact that mathematics as applied to science was probably the highest form of human thinking."


Born in Sydney, Kerry Francis Bullmore Packer inherited his publishing empire from his father, Sir Frank. He controls the media group Publishing and Broadcasting, Consolidated Press Holdings and the Nine TV network, although his son James has assumed much of the leadership. He is often cited as Australia's richest man and other investments include casinos, where he sometimes gambles. He said, after being clinically dead from a heart attack: "I've been to the other side, and let me tell you, son, there's nothing f--- there."


Born in Sydney, philosopher and academic John Arthur Passmore was influenced by John Anderson at Sydney University. He is not well known in Australia but his books, particularly A Hundred Years of Philosophy and Man's Responsibility for Nature, are much admired overseas. Korean teachers once danced around him in homage. He said: "It is our historic task to show the world what can be created by a resolute pursuit of mediocrity ... the recognition ... of the limitations of human beings. Our mediocrity is our saving grace."


Born near Orange, Andrew Barton Paterson spent his early years in the bush, became a solicitor, wrote idealistic ballads such as Clancy of the Overflow and The Man from Snowy River and argued with the more socially realistic Henry Lawson. Paterson preferred "the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended". He became a journalist and reported the Boer War. And he wrote Waltzing Matilda. He said: "I only got a fiver for the song but it's worth a million to me to hear it sung like this."


Born in Alice Springs, Charles Nelson Perkins became one of the first two Aboriginal university graduates in 1965, with Margaret Valadian. His "freedom rides" through NSW country towns brought discrimination against Aborigines to public attention. He became secretary of the Aboriginal Affairs Department. He said in his autobiography, A Bastard Like Me: "To me Aboriginal affairs is an emotional issue. There is no crime in this. I am talking about my brothers and sisters, my mother, my uncles and aunties."


Born in Adelaide, Margaret Rose Preston is in the vanguard of the underrated Australian women artists instrumental in introducing post-impressionism. Her work is marked by bold design and dramatic colour. Her paintings and prints celebrate Australia's flora and landscape. She pioneered an appreciation of Aboriginal art, and lent volatile support to the notion of a national art. She said: "An artist is something on two legs with a simple soul and a belief that he was made before God."

QUICK, JOHN 1852-1932

Born in Cornwall, Quick came to Australia as a toddler and became a lawyer, politician and writer. When the push for Federation became bogged down, Quick revived it at the 1893 Corowa conference by moving for a popularly elected convention to draw up a constitution. He wrote, with Robert Garran, the Annotated Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth.

He said: "Groups of men ... animated by patriotic impulses ... thought the time had arrived when national unity should be made a people's cause."


Henry Reynolds's work has added depth to Australian history by looking at European settlement from an Aboriginal perspective, a perspective overlooked by most historians. Reynolds, born in Hobart, estimates that more than 20,000 Aborigines died in what he calls frontier wars. The estimate has been challenged but books such as The Other Side of the Frontier have had a powerful effect. He said: "If you wrote the Aborigines out of history, you could write out the violence and Australia became a peaceful, ordered society."


Born in Melbourne, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson studied piano in Leipzig and married Scot John George Robertson, a distinguished German scholar. Her novels, written under her pen-name, particularly Maurice Guest, the trilogy The Fortunes of Richard Mahony and The Getting of Wisdom, are among the best Australian novels and have won international recognition. She wrote: "When, for the third time, Richard Mahony set foot in Australia ... he was a ruined man."

ROBERTS, TOM 1856-1931

Born in England, Thomas William Roberts became, in Streeton's words, the father of Australian landscape painting. His innovative landscapes, narrative set pieces and portraits marked the birth of an unabashed Australian art. In a clear, if sentimental, light, he celebrated the bush, mateship, courage, hard work and resourcefulness. He painted the official opening of the first Australian Parliament. He said, on smelling eucalyptus leaves in Spain: "Don't you smell it, boys? Don't you smell it? It's Australia."

SCHUBERT, MAX 1915-1994

Growing up in the Barossa Valley, Schubert began work as a messenger for Penfolds, the wine company. He became chief winemaker after World War II and introduced Grange, a red wine like none other in Australia. Its true worth was not recognised for a decade, but it is now one of the great wines of the world and the company one of the leading winemakers. He said: "It's so essential that a winemaker give some of his personality to his wine. His personality is part and parcel of the wine itself."


Harry Seidler's family fled Austria, where he was born in Vienna, after Hitler's annexation. He studied under Walter Gropius, worked in New York and Brazil and came to Australia, where he won many awards, acclamation for buildings like Australia Square and the Australian Embassy in Paris, and condemnation for buildings such as Blues Point Tower. He was the first Australian member of the Academie D'Architecture. He said: "The urban sprawl is a pain for me. I bleed internally when I see it."


Born in Melbourne, Peter Singer became director of Monash University's Human Bioethics Centre. Australia's best-known philosopher, he wrote Animal Liberation and the Encyclopaedia Britannica's entry on ethics. He has attracted hostility for arguing that the Pope's moral order is an empty shell and for calling for recognition of limited euthanasia. Now a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, he said: "There is only one place for any fur coat, and that is on the back of an animal."

STREET, JESSIE 1889-1970

Born in India, Jessie Mary Grey Street graduated from Sydney University in 1910, joined the League of Nations Union and feminist organisations. She campaigned for Sheepskins for Russia in World War II, joined the Australian delegation to the conference that established the United Nations and successfully lobbied for a charter for women's rights. She campaigned for the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights. She quoted Emerson: "God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose ... You can never have both."


Born in Sydney, Sutherland went to London, teamed up with Richard Bonynge and, from her Lucia de Lammermoor in 1959, became a leading soprano, known worldwide as La Stupenda. She helped revive the bel canto operas, became one of the most prolific recording artists and made a huge contribution to Australian opera. Luciano Pavarotti described her voice as "certainly the greatest voice of the century". She said: "I love all those demented old dames of the old operas. They are loony, but the music is wonderful."


Born in Sydney, Arthur Harold Tange worked for a bank and became an economist and a public servant. He drafted the Colombo Plan, which brought thousands of Asian students to Australia. He carved out a reputation for solid advice to successive governments, five prime ministers and 17 ministers in the departments of external affairs and defence, becoming custodian of the American alliance. He said: "Australia will never possess a big stick ... but I do believe that there should be a stick."


Born in Alice Springs, Thomas was taken from his mother and studied art in Adelaide. He designed a flag during Aboriginal rights marches and activist Gary Foley unfurled it at a 1971 rally. Thomas failed to register it for copyright, missing out on royalties, but the world saw athlete Cathy Freeman run with it at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and at the Sydney Olympics, not in protest but in triumph. He said: "This flag came out of the struggle for self-awareness: that black is beautiful and don't be ashamed."


Born in Melbourne, Shane Keith Warne was voted last year by Wisden, the cricket bible, as the fourth top cricketer of the century. He followed Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Jack Hobbs. Warne has changed the face of Test cricket and made it more attractive by restoring leg spin bowling, hitherto thought arcane. He has introduced his spin to limited-overs cricket, where it was thought not to have a place. There can be few cricketers since Bradman to have had such an influence on the game. He said: "The odd one turned."

WHITE, PATRICK 1912-1990

Born in London, Patrick Victor Martindale White settled in Sydney after serving in World War II. His novel The Tree of Man established his international reputation, enhanced by Miles Franklin awards for Voss and Riders in the Chariot and the 1973 Nobel Prize following The Eye of the Storm. Often cantankerous, he was a generous benefactor to charity and the arts. He said: "Australians of all classes, levels of education, of the best intentions and integrity, are a prey to their native innocence."


Born in Melbourne, Edward Gough Whitlam became a lawyer and a Labor politician of a fresh hue. He rewrote policies before taking Labor to power in 1972, ending 23 years of conservative rule. Although his government grew chaotic and lasted only three years, he stirred Australians out of political apathy. Many of his reforms survive. He retains a sense of public duty, contributing to the national debate. He said: "When you are faced with an impasse, you have to crash through or you've got to crash. I crashed through in a few impasses."


Born in Sydney, James Wolfensohn fenced for Australia in the 1956 Olympics, plays chess and cello, went to Wall Street and is World Bank president. Called the "General Scwarzkopf of fundraising", his friends include Placido Domingo and Teddy Kennedy. He and Rupert Murdoch are the two most influential Australians. He said: "The millennial spirit has been perhaps best captured by an extraordinary movement inspired by the biblical concept of Jubilee to cancel foreign debt in the world's poorest, most heavily indebted countries."

WRIGHT, JUDITH 1915-2000

Born near Armidale, Judith Wright studied at Sydney University and won acclaim with her book of verse The Moving Image. She was one of Australia's foremost poets, the first Australian to win the Queen's Gold Medal for poetry, and won other international prizes. She wrote biography, short stories and children's books and campaigned for conservation and the Aborigines. She said: "The mateship ingredient in Australian tradition was always and necessarily one-sided; it left out of account the whole relationship with women."


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