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Speaker 1: The King's birthday honors have been announced, and one of

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Speaker 1: those on the list is one mister Timothy John Winton.

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Speaker 2: He's with us now. Good morning, tim tim Good morning.

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Speaker 1: I thought you were getting in trouble your full name

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Speaker 1: was being used. It has been announced you're being honored

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Speaker 1: with an AO for your contribution to literature, conservation and

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Speaker 1: environmental advocacy.

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Speaker 2: Congratulations.

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Speaker 1: How did you I mean, we found out about the

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Speaker 1: honors yesterday morning. How did you find out about them?

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Speaker 3: I got, I got a sort of secret message from

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Speaker 3: from Canberra last week. I think, okay, yeah, it's sort

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Speaker 3: of it was all very hush hush and yeah, look

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Speaker 3: it's it's a it's a nice surprise, you know, at

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Speaker 3: my grand old age to think that the you know,

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Speaker 3: the nation would would would would give you the nod. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and look it's you know, it's it's kind of you know,

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Speaker 3: it's worth remembering. This is this is handed out by Australians.

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Speaker 3: This is you know, your fellow citizens nominate you and

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Speaker 3: then endorse you, and and I guess you know the

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Speaker 3: Governor General gives it out in the name of the King.

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Speaker 3: But King's got so many birthdays. No under the old

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Speaker 3: fellows looking. I mean you'd be puffed out just and

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Speaker 3: blown out the candles.

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Speaker 1: Things to be the birthday today on the East Coast

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Speaker 1: we do it in October.

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Speaker 2: His actual birthdays in November. It's great.

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Speaker 3: You wouldn't know, you wouldn't know if you're coming or.

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Speaker 4: Going, especially in that top job. Now team do.

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Speaker 3: Well, you can have it.

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Speaker 1: What does happen now in regard to a ceremony.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure. I think there's I think later in

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Speaker 3: the year you have the opportunity to go and receive

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Speaker 3: a gong in person, whether that's in Canberra or down

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Speaker 3: at Guvy House in Perth. I'm not sure. I haven't

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Speaker 3: really got to the details of that yet, trying to

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Speaker 3: trying to absorb the.

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Speaker 5: News, the front page of the West Today, your photos

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Speaker 5: right next to Barry Humphreys.

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Speaker 4: You're a very good company.

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Speaker 3: That's nice, okay, so hopefully only one of us was

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Speaker 3: in a dress right.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, your three decades long campaign to help protect Ningoloo,

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Speaker 1: it's one of the very big parts of this honor.

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Speaker 1: It's touched on in a three part series which is

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Speaker 1: now streaming on ABC I View. What's your first memory

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Speaker 1: of visiting Ningoloo? Was it love at first sight?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was really. I mean, like a lot of people,

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Speaker 3: I went to the Ningoloo first time, well over thirty

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Speaker 3: years ago. Now, I went there to go fishing, right,

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Speaker 3: and then I somehow just got I got introduced to

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Speaker 3: what's really there, you know, which is just a bit

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Speaker 3: more complicated under the water than above the water. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: I ended up getting chucked in the water and mondays

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Speaker 3: and swam with a swam with a whale shark for

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Speaker 3: the first time, and it just blew my mind. And

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Speaker 3: from then I wanted to learn more about about it.

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Speaker 3: And I've spent thirty years, yeah, learning more about it,

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Speaker 3: celebrating it, and I'm trying to defend it. And look,

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Speaker 3: it's pretty nice to get an honor for environmental advocacy.

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Speaker 3: I mean in this state, you know, we tend to

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Speaker 3: we tend to celebrate on a cricketers first and then

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Speaker 3: mining tycoons second, and environmental activists tend to get denigrated,

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Speaker 3: if not persecuted. So to get an Order of Australia

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Speaker 3: for trying to save the natural world, yeah, it's one

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Speaker 3: against the tide, I guess.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, And today gives you the opportunity man to

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Speaker 5: keep talking about it. Look, is a writer always writing

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Speaker 5: tim even between projects, You're always looking at idea.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, you're always on You're always on the job.

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Speaker 3: I mean you're kind of absorbing stuff all the time,

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Speaker 3: I suppose, and you're unconsciously doing that a lot of

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Speaker 3: the time. And yeah, I mean, I guess I'm a storyteller.

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Speaker 3: I'm interested in communities and places and people and everything

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Speaker 3: for me starts with the place. You know, the landscape

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Speaker 3: and the natural world is where the stories and the

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Speaker 3: people come from. But yeah, look, it's really difficult to

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Speaker 3: talk about. I mean, I've been doing this since I

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Speaker 3: was in school. I mean, I've been doing this since

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Speaker 3: the seventies. I've never had a real job. Yeah, I've

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Speaker 3: never had game for employment. And I've not been doing this, yeah,

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Speaker 3: since I was seventeen. So it's yeah, i don't even

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Speaker 3: know how I do it anymore. I've just been doing

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Speaker 3: it so long, I guess.

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Speaker 1: A wonderful blending of the two loves is blue Back,

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Speaker 1: and the production of Blue Back by the Spare Parts

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Speaker 1: Puppet Theater is running throughout July at the Elioton Theater

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Speaker 1: at the Claremont Showground. When you first started writing in

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Speaker 1: the seventies. You know, did you think one day my

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Speaker 1: stories are going to be on stage, on the small screen,

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Speaker 1: on the big screen.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean I never, I mean, didn't

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Speaker 3: even know what an opera was, and now people are

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Speaker 3: making operas out of my you know, So to think

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Speaker 3: that you know something that you've sought up in your

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Speaker 3: own head, you know, in your bedroom or in your

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Speaker 3: in your study or on your mum and dad's laundering

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Speaker 3: floor while fat cats doing his thing, that has it

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Speaker 3: has a kind of another life and you know, to

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Speaker 3: be translated into what thirty languages or whatever. And as

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Speaker 3: you say, you know, stage and screen and puppetry and opera. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's pretty wild.

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Speaker 4: Tim.

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Speaker 5: The first time we met, mate, you just launched your

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Speaker 5: book called the Writer's Beautiful book called the Writers, and

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Speaker 5: we had the same length hair down to our bombs

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Speaker 5: pretty much.

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Speaker 4: Now, will you tell your hair, he's your hair the

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Speaker 4: same length? Off? Tap mine off? Will you tie back

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Speaker 4: to the gong?

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Speaker 3: Oh, it's a good point. I've got a bunk shoulders,

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Speaker 3: so I'm struggling to tie it at the moment. I'm

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Speaker 3: just struggling to brush it. But yeah, agent gravity's sort

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Speaker 3: of doing some of the work. For me, it's just

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Speaker 3: breaking off and fall that out, and you spend as

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Speaker 3: much time in the water and the sun as I am. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: no hair can stand up to wa wedder, mate, Timmy.

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Speaker 1: You're working on anything new at the moment.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just finishing, you know, I'm just trying to

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Speaker 3: recover from having made the documentary for Once.

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Speaker 2: It was that was three years, isn't it making?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it was almost four really, it's kind of crazy.

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Speaker 3: And we shot for fifty seven weeks without a break.

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Speaker 3: That was nuts. I mean, you can make a feature

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Speaker 3: film in six weeks, so yeah, that's amazing. It was

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Speaker 3: cruel and unusual punishment. But yeah, I was trying to

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Speaker 3: work on a novel during that same period, and I'm

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Speaker 3: just finishing that off now and I think that'll come

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Speaker 3: out next year. So that'll be my That'll be my

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Speaker 3: thirtieth book, which is bonkers to think about it.

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Speaker 5: Don't have cook things, do you, tim You see all

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Speaker 5: the way through that's unreal, right, Well that is yeah.

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Speaker 3: Oh well it's something to survive, you know. I think it's. Yeah, Look,

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Speaker 3: it's been it's been an interesting ride. I mean, to

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Speaker 3: come out of you know, a working class state housing

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Speaker 3: area for caring up to go to state schools and

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Speaker 3: then end up in this position. It's it's it's been

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Speaker 3: a surprising ride, and I know my mum and dad

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Speaker 3: are pretty proud, so I'm glad, glad that they live

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Speaker 3: to see it.

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Speaker 2: You're such a modest person.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't see you getting a big

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Speaker 1: head anytime in the in the near future, but congratulations

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Speaker 1: on the AO. We're so proud of you, and thank

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Speaker 1: you for joining us today.

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Speaker 3: Tim, good on you guys. Thanks for having me