The biennial CG O'Donnell is awarded in honor of Gus O'Donnell. Click here for information about the prize.

Gustav Charles – Gus – O'Donnell was the founder of the Australian Copyright Council and the primary instigator of most, if not all, of the reforms in copyright law in Australia since he first took an active interest in copyright in the late 1960s.

Gus joined the Australian Society of Authors in 1967 and was elected Chairman of the Committee of Management in 1969, being re-elected each year until he stood down in 1975. He held the copyright portfolio from 1968, in which year he founded the Copyright Council. He lobbied strenuously and stubbornly for payments to authors from photocopying, particularly in educational institutions.  He worked to establish Copyright Agency Ltd as a mechanism for the collective administration of payments to copyright owners.

Gus' most famous success was the Copyright Amendment Act 1980, which introduced the statutory licence for photocopying in educational institutions, but he was also the instigator of numerous other reforms. He organised the first meetings of audio-visual interests that led to the introduction of the blank tape royalty scheme for home taping and was active in the debate for performers' rights and moral rights. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Aboriginal Artists Agency, Australia's first collecting society for visual artists, as well as the Copyright Society of Australia. He wrote extensively on authors' rights and the copyright theory, notably 'A Short Note on Anti-Copyright' published in 1987.

Gus was born in Sweden in 1912 and grew up on a farm in the Victorian Mallee District. He left Australia in 1937 to join the New Guinea Service and was posted to Salamaua and became one of that special group of men 'the last of the patrol officers who opened up the Morobe District'. In 1939 he passed out first in the special course on administration at Sydney University for New Guinea officers. Under manpower regulations he was repeatedly refused permission to enlist in the AIF until in Port Moresby, after Pearl Harbour, he was attested to the Militia and later joined the AIF. He was awarded the Military Cross.

From 1945 to 1947 he lectured in administration at the Australian School of Pacific Administration at Mosman.He rejoined the Papua New Guinea Administration and served as an Assistant District Officer in Manus, Lae, Kopopo and Losuia until he resigned in 1952 and joined the Commonwealth public service.

Gus' novel 'Time Expired' gained second prize in the Adelaide Festival Novel Competition in 1964.  Of it the judges said:

'The writer is clearly very well acquainted with the facts and has recorded perceptively what he saw ... It is a book whose warmth and sincerity commend it very strongly.  It is also permeated by a visionary quality.'

Gus wrote regularly with articles and poems published in newspapers and magazines.  His book for children 'The Bunyip on Little Mountain' was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1979.

Gus O'Donnell died in July 1989, and the inaugural GC O'Donnell essay prize was awarded later in that year.