Neil Balnaves

Neil Richard Balnaves He grew up in Penola in the south-east of the state, and had polio as a teenager, which crippled his right arm. ==Career==

Balnaves' media career started in advertising, in Adelaide in 1960, moving into senior roles in production companies. Balnaves worked in the media industry for over 60 years. He founded the Southern Star Group in 1988, and was executive chairman of the company. Southern Star was responsible for bringing shows such as Water Rats, and ''McLeod's Daughters, Big Brother and Bananas in Pyjamas'' to Australian television screens. From 2003 until 2016 he was chair of the Ardent Leisure Group, responsible for running theme parks such as Dreamworld in Queensland. Other directorships included Hanna-Barbera Australia and the Taft-Hardie Group. ==Other roles==

• Chancellor of Charles Darwin University, 2016–2018 • Director and Trustee Member of Bond University • Board member of the Art Gallery of South Australia, 2013–2019 • Member of the Advisory Council and Dean's Circle at the UNSW Faculty of Medicine • Director of the Sydney Orthopaedic Research Institute • Member of the Chairmans Circle at 'Sydney Theatre Company • Foundation Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors • Served various advisory and community organisations ==Honours==

• 2009: Honorary doctorate of the Bond University • 2010: Honorary doctorate of the University of New South Wales ==Death and legacy==

Balnaves died on 21 February 2022 in a boating accident while holidaying with his wife, Diane, in Tahiti. He was survived by Diane and children Hamish and Victoria. Their sister Alexandra had died after a long illness in 2019. ==Philanthropy and interests==

Influences It was after a near-death experience caused by a boating accident on the Gold Coast, Queensland in 2002 that Balnaves turned to philanthropy. to support the arts, education, and research into medical and social justice issues in Australia. Balnaves said that it was important to him that the foundation focused on "Indigenous Australia, young people and the disadvantaged" in order to help create "a better Australia". In 2017, Balnaves supported the Adelaide Festival, then under the directorship of Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield, and started the "Tix for Next to Nix" program, In 2020, the Balnaves Foundation gave A$1.25 million to the Indigenous Law Centre at UNSW to establish a term chair, known as the Balnaves Chair in Constitutional Law, to allow Professor Megan Davis to continue the work of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The chair was named in honour of Alexandra Balnaves, who died in 2019. The foundation had had a long relationship with UNSW, by 2020 having given almost A$5.5 million, which included allocations for Indigenous medical scholarships and for funding the UNSW Indigenous Law Centre. In 2021, the foundation helped to fund Unsettled, an exhibition on the colonisation of Australia through Indigenous perspectives mounted at the Australian Museum in Sydney, enabling free entry to for the more than 70,000 visitors. Balnaves was a strong supporter of the First Nations Division at the museum, and also encouraged others to contribute to supporting the arts and First Nations peoples. Nick Mitzevich, NGA director, said of Balnaves: "The beauty of his philanthropy was to leverage and do more with the support he gave to make it bigger and better. He was never a passive philanthropist". The Balnaves Contemporary Series supported major annual commissions of contemporary artists from 2018 onwards. Others to benefit from the foundation's philanthropy are: • St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney • Black Dog Institute • Story Factory • NIDA's First Nations Program People All three of Neil and Diane Balnaves' children worked for the foundation, and after Neil's death, Diane, Hamish and Victoria continued to work for the foundation, along with a daughter of Alexandra, Caillean Honor. By the time of Balnaves' death on 21 February 2022, the foundation had given away , and was continuing to give around per year to the arts. ==Footnotes==