Speaking at the ACSP gala dinner on Thursday night the novelist, screenwriter and actor called on parents to take an active part in shaping their children's sense of right and wrong.

"I wanted to reflect on the assumption many have that the entire moral formation of the child must derive from the school and my conviction that certain ultimate principles are best imbued in the home," Mr Keneally said of his speech.

"But, as a fallback position, one is lucky to have a school system which will make an attempt at imbuing them.

"I would like to reflect too on the uncertain position of the humanities, literature and history in particular when it comes to the question of monetary allocations at all levels and, of all things, how this relates to the process of writing, a mysterious process which I have tried to observe as well as endure in my writing career."

Mr Keneally praised the efforts of teachers in today's schools but said their efforts too often go unacknowledged.

"It's appropriate to say that in the career of every significant Australian there have been teachers or a teacher who has been essential to the forming of a sensibility," he said.

"Writers certainly name such people when they get together at festivals and watering holes.

"The sad thing is that the object of the praise is sometimes dead or is certainly retired somewhere in the world and does not hear his or her reviews."