Keith Murdoch Oration

2025 Keith Murdoch Oration

The 2025 Keith Murdoch Oration was presented on 24 September 2025 by Sir Jonathan Mills AC, on the impact of artificial intelligence on society and the arts. 

In a speech that pitted artistic intelligence against artificial intelligence, the award-winning composer challenged the assumption underpinning machine learning: that intelligence can be divorced from feeling, and that creativity can be mimicked by machines trained on statistical probabilities. Calling for a renewed commitment to the arts, Sir Jonathan argued that human memory, imagination and emotional depth are essential to creative inspiration and originality – reflecting our uniquely human experience.   

About Sir Jonathan Mills AC

Sir Jonathan Mills AC is a renowned Australian-born composer and festival director whose career spans music, architecture, and the leadership of some of the world’s most significant cultural institutions. He is best known as Artistic Director and Chief Executive of the Edinburgh International Festival (2006–2014), where he consolidated the Festival’s global standing.

An accomplished composer, Mills’s works include the operas The Eternity Man and The Ghost Wife, and the choral-orchestral work Sandakan Threnody, which was awarded the Prix Italia.

Recognised globally for his contributions to the arts, he was knighted in the United Kingdom in 2013 and awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2024 he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC). His leadership has helped shape cultural exchange and artistic innovation across continents, reflecting a lifelong commitment to the transformative power of the arts.

About the Keith Murdoch Oration

The Keith Murdoch Oration is a major event that raises funds to support the work of State Library Victoria, and to recognise the Library as a centre for excellence in the world of ideas and information.

The Oration also reflects the Library's commitment to promoting debate within the community about knowledge and culture.

The inaugural Keith Murdoch Oration was presented by Rupert Murdoch in 2001, on the topic of the human wealth of nations. Others have included:

• James P. Gorman AO in 2023 on ‘What happened to the concept ‘You can bank on it?’’
• Robert Thomson in 2019 on ‘Truth, trust and tech'
• Noel Pearson in 2016 on ‘Still hunting the radical centre: revisiting Daniel Patrick Moynihan’
• Lachlan Murdoch in 2014 on a free media
• The Honourable Paul Keating in 2012, on Asia in the new world order
• Hugh Evans in 2009 on Australia's global future
• Lord Sebastian Coe in 2006 on the future of sport
• Nobel Prize-winning scientist Professor Peter Doherty in 2004, on libraries and learning.

About Keith Murdoch 

In 2001, State Library Victoria established the Keith Murdoch Oration to honour the outstanding contribution of Sir Keith Murdoch as Trustee (1933–39) and President (1939–45) of the Public Library (now State Library Victoria), Museums and National Gallery of Victoria. 

Born in Melbourne in 1885, Keith Murdoch was educated at Camberwell Grammar School and the London School of Economics. He began his journalistic career as a parliamentary reporter for The Age and later political correspondent for The Sun of Sydney, before being appointed editor of the London bureau of the United Cable Service after the outbreak of World War I. 

Commissioned by then Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, Murdoch was sent to Gallipoli to investigate the Australian Imperial Force mail service and associated matters. Following his ‘Gallipoli letter’, a report on the condition of Australian forces and the conduct of the campaign at Gallipoli, he became an influential figure in political circles. 

In 1921, he returned to Australia to take up the appointment of editor in chief at the Melbourne Herald, where he undertook a major overhaul of the paper, introducing women’s interest content, more extensive coverage of sports and the arts, crosswords and comics, and a greater emphasis on photography. He quickly rose through the ranks to managing editor, managing director and ultimately chairman. Throughout his career at the Herald newspaper group and founder of News Limited, he was devoted to making knowledge available to the community – an attribute manifest in his leadership of the Library. 

In 1933, the same year he was knighted, Murdoch joined the Library’s Board of Trustees. A passionate patron of the arts, his abundant ability, sound judgement, untiring work ethic and lively interest in literature contributed to shaping State Library Victoria into the cultural icon it is today. 

The legacy of Sir Keith Murdoch’s work has continued with members of his family donating $5 million to the Library in 2001 for the creation of a dedicated exhibition space, named the Keith Murdoch Gallery.