Last year we went to Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia. If ever there’s a nightmare for a humanist it’s Saudi Arabia. Though I’ve been to some pretty bad places in my time – Cambodia just after Pol Pot, Burma, Ethiopia, Eritrea – places where there have been appalling human tragedies, in my observation Saudi Arabia ranks worse than any of those in terms of how the place is run. It is oppression beyond belief. There are armed police on every corner. You can’t go anywhere without being stopped and searched. And of course if you’re a woman you’re in real strife if you try to have any independence. We went there as a guest of the King of Saudi Arabia. We stayed in a six star hotel surrounded by razor wire, armoured tanks, and even in the lobby there were half a dozen machine gun carrying soldiers to make sure we were not bombed. Because it’s not often reported in the papers in Australia, but every week there is a gun fight, a bombing by various forces of fundamentalism who believe the king is too pro-western. Which gives you some idea of how fanatic some of these people are.

It is a singular and humbling honour to be asked to make the presentation to Tim Flannery. I am a supporter and a member of your organisation, and philosophically I’ve been a humanist all my life. It is one of those rare occasions which is special for me, even to be the presenter, but to be the presenter to Tim Flannery is even more of an honour.  

In preparation for tonight, I went to the internet and put 'Tim Flannery' into the search instrument, pressed the button and the thing went berserk. I think there was over a million references. I went through page after page, and stopped when I got to page 58. The recognitions, the sites it just went on and on, of all the things Tim has done. It is an astonishing record on all those websites that make some mention of Tim’s contribution to the intellectual life, not just of South Australia or Australia but to the world. Tim in many ways, is what Gough Whitlam would call one of our ‘living treasures’. As a human being, as a humanist and as an Australian, and we’re very, very lucky to have him here in Adelaide, South Australia. When I couldn’t go through all those pages I asked his office to send me his official CV. That came to 24 pages of his publications, addresses, books etc. I don’t know, in my public life, of any politician on either side of politics who would rank anywhere near the contribution to intellectual life that Tim has made in his profession, which is broader than just being the Director of the SA Museum, as a historian a planetologist and many other names I can’t pronounce properly.

It is singularly appropriate that you have made him Humanist of the Year. There is a range of people on the list that Tim now joins. It’s an extraordinary range of people, who have contributed better than most other groups in Australia to the intellectual life of this country and to the world. And we’ve added another illustrious name to that list, in our presentation tonight to Tim as Australian Humanist of the Year.

I noticed in the websites about Tim, that he is a humanist, and a scientist of international repute. But one great thing about Tim is that he creates controversy, he creates debate. There is always somebody somewhere who disagrees with his paper, his book, his concepts. But I think that Tim, as a great scientist, understands that that’s what good science, good intellectual activity is about. It improves society by creating debate. Debate is not to be squashed, even if you disagree strongly, it was Voltaire who said ‘I disagree with everything you says but I’ll fight to the death for your right to say it.’ There are plenty of people who have disagreed strongly with what Tim has said and what he has proposed, but you can not ignore that you have to engage in his debate.

The thing that we humanists appreciate with Tim, is that he’s in that debate. What we also note is that there are elements now, and have always been in our society and they seem to be somewhat stronger today in Australia and some parts of the western world, who don’t what to enter the scientific debate that the Tim Flannerys of the world create. They are fundamentalists, they are religious fanatics who say this is the truth, and if you disagree with it you’ll be punished in some form or another. That is anathema to us as humanists and to others of those who want an open, democratic, vibrant society. I think one of the great challenges to us is to support people like Tim, who are putting out into the community of the world that there has to be rational debate about the condition of the world, the environment, the condition of the human race and what has to be done to improve it. We do not wait as humanists for us to pass on and then go to heaven and live happily everafter, in everlasting heaven in sight of god, and so on. We actually as humanists believe we’ve got to create a better world for all human beings here on this planet. That is anathema to the fundamentalists who now are getting an increasing hold in the political operation of Australia and of the western world.    

Our challenge as humanists is to support the Tim Flannerys to take those people on and not be afraid to debate them, and to stand and say we are humanists who do not believe in blind faith. Because every time you believe in blind faith an atrocity is committed somewhere. Over the last 5,000 years of somewhat recorded human history it is the people who have had blind faith who have created the worst atrocities against other human beings. It is not humanists who have created the atrocities it is those who claim they believe in the word of some mystical being.  

One of the things I’d like to propose to the Humanist Convention in May, is that it is time for the various groups in the community, the humanists, atheists, rationalists, skeptics, even those who support euthanasia, a whole range of groups to come together and start planning a campaign to stand up and say what we believe, which is in a secular state, where open discussion, debate and democracy is there for everybody to join in and not to be brow beaten by those who claim to know better than we do, or claim to impose their views on us. At the moment they are trying to get control political parties, the political system, to impose their view on the rest of us.

It’s happening in America. The fundamentalists who’ve taken control of the Republican Party are no different from the fundamentalists who’ve got control of some of the Arab countries in the Middle East – in their intolerance, in their abuse of human rights – and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen in Australia.

I therefore call on humanists, rationalists, atheists, to come together in a national campaign to defend the right of a secular state, where there is freedom of religion, but that individual religious belief is not imposed on anyone else against their will. I think that is a very strong theme in which our organisation can take a lead.

I now want to return to Tim Flannery, and I hope he accepts that challenge as well. As I said what Tim has done in the 24 pages of his CV is without doubt an extraordinary achievement. It’s an intellectual achievement, and he still has many, many years ahead of him. I hope in the years ahead the broader community will recognise even further Tim Flannery’s extraordinary contribution. But whatever awards and rewards and recognition he gets from the rest of Australia, as he should, I always hope that being awarded the Humanist of the Year is one that will always rank equally with any other he’s already received and obviously going to get in the future.

Transcribed and edited by Rosslyn Ives.