The bill. Credit:Ben Grubb He then speaks of his "addiction". "Even if I'm on a flight somewhere I still have to do an hour in the gym," he says. "So I did my gym .... I've got a bike, treadmill and weights so that I can do it all at home. I mean you'd never walk out of the house without having a shower; I cannot walk out of the house without having exercised." He adds that he weighs himself three times a day. I don't ask why.

Burke's been addicted to exercise his entire life, ever since his Olympic wrestler cousin told him when he was a teenager that without a fit body you couldn't have a fit mind. But keeping fit isn't the only thing occupying Burke's mind. Australians' increasing appetite for film and TV shows sourced online for free is upsetting both him and his company's bank balance. Recent rainfall on Queensland's Gold Coast – home to his company's theme parks Movie World, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild – is also causing him grief through low visitor numbers. "That's the Gold Coast," he says, pointing to a recent Village half-year financial report he's brought along with him, "and that's the amount of rain this January (510.4mm); that's last January (189.6mm). That's December this [financial] year (189.6mm), December last [financial] year (71mm). Rain, rain, rain, rain! "We had the wettest summer in Queensland in 60 years. And when it rains ... people don't go to the theme parks." Born in Ararat, a former gold-mining town nearly 200 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, Burke describes life at home on his family's farm with his three sisters, mother (a waitress) and father (a sheep farmer) as "idyllic".

"It was just a good, peaceful existence where everything revolved around church on Sundays," he says. He started working at 14, at a theatre in the Ararat Town Hall owned by the late Roc Kirby, who founded Village. It was there that he got his first foot inside the movie business. Often described as Kirby's "surrogate son", Burke originally helped with the matinee and sweeping. "But by the time I was 15 or 16 I ended up managing the theatre," he says. "I was doing everything, including taking the cash home of a night in a cloth bag and throwing it under my bed so I could bank it the next day at lunchtime from school." He was "happily underpaid" at the time – but this is most definitely no longer the case. BRW recently calculated that his 2015 remuneration at Village was $4.2 million.

"I split in part because I never failed anything and I knew there was no way I was going to pass anything because I wasn't going to any lectures," he says. "I was working part-time in the movie business and that became obsessively triple full-time and then other than that I was partying. "So I thought I better get out ... before I fail!"

On the topic of partying, perhaps a bit too hard, I ask him about a court case in which he was quoted blaming "smoking funny stuff" as the reason for making some irrational business decisions. I delicately inquired: What "funny stuff" was he smoking? "I said it as a joke!" Burke assures me. "That was just a quip. I was smoking nothing. I'm drug free." Fair enough. Now down to more serious business. Why is going to the cinema so expensive in Australia? "Because of the quality of the cinemas," he says. "If you look at cinemas in most countries they're ratty, they're dirty, they're broken down."

But the other reason is our British traditions, he insists. "Australia imported a whole lot of very capable union officials that got very high wages for people who work in theatres," he says. OK then. But is he afraid by the disruption of Village's distribution and cinema business by the internet? "I've got tremendous confidence in the future of the cinema business because people want to go out," he says. "They will always want to go out. People want to see what other people are wearing, they want to smell sweat, they want to be where other people are. "And so I think the future of cinemas is very powerful. The only question mark is piracy..." But if piracy is the issue, then what about countering it with cheaper movie downloads on the internet, and releasing them in a timely way?

Burke admits movie downloads used to be "hugely expensive" in Australia, but Village recently "brought that down ... to less than the UK and marginally behind America". But despite this, he maintains that online piracy continues to be a huge problem. I suggest it's partly because of the typical 90-day window between a movie's theatrical release and its digital version becoming available. In 2012, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, then in Opposition, said to curb online piracy, studios needed to release their movies earlier for download. "All they are doing is throwing money away by not making it available instantly," Mr Turnbull said. Burke doesn't explicitly disagree, but says that gap - known as the "piracy window" - is always going to have to exist to ensure films remain viable.

"Feature films cost between $3 million, $5 million and $300 million," he says. "So there has to be a window or the model won't work." Village's recent submission on copyright infringement to the federal government argued that the dangers posed by online piracy were so great that the end goal should be "total eradication or zero tolerance" in Australia. "Just as there is no place on the internet for terrorism or paedophilia, there should be no place for theft," the submission said. But in person, Burke takes a much softer approach. "Piracy is still somewhat on the fringes but it has the potential to become universal unless it's addressed." He says a tripartite initiative is needed to curb the problem.

First he says rights holders need to win the hearts and minds of Australians by getting across to them "the fact that [downloading illicitly] is theft, and there will be no creativity, there will be no movies" if they continue pirating. Second, rights holders have to make product available "at fair prices and easily accessible". Third, there has to be legislation making it harder for downloaders to access infringing content – "in the same way you wouldn't say, 'Hey we're not going to have legislation against drunken driving or high-speed driving or legislation against stealing.' " Burke knows about high-speed driving. "I got a note last night saying I'd been photographed by a camera in my car exceeding the speed limit and I've lost three points," he says. "As I've already lost nine points it's rather worrying."

The relevance of this is that Burke believes similar sanctions should apply to pirates. Just as when you go over your ISP download limit and have your speeds slowed, Burke has, in the past, suggested that the same punishment should apply if you pirate more than three times. But the recently agreed anti-piracy code, put together by rights holders, such as Village Roadshow, and ISPs, such as iiNet, doesn't include such sanctions. Is Burke happy about that? "A good agreement is when both sides are not deliriously happy but both sides are happy," he says. "Am I thrilled? No. Do I think it's a good code? Yes. The one item that's still to be resolved is [who pays the] costs [to run the scheme]." The code is due to start on September 1 pending approval by the communications regulator. It includes a notice-on-notice scheme, whereby alleged pirates are forwarded letters informing them that they have been detected pirating a piece of content, and that if they are caught doing it three times their details could be handed over to rights holders who could then sue them for damages.

Burke says his company won't be afraid to sue people "that act in a criminal way" as part of the process. But he says he hopes the bulk of people will do the right thing "and we won't have to sue too many people; but we will be prepared to sue people". Still on piracy, he says the issue got to such a point recently that the banks were threatening to stop lending him money. "They said to me, 'If you can't sell the tickets, if you can't sell the DVDs, how can we get our money back? We're not going to lend to you anymore'. And I had to convince them that Mr Turnbull, the minister for communications, and Mr Brandis, [the attorney-general], signed a letter saying legislation was coming - this is addressable." In addition to the code, another victory for Burke in his fight against online piracy is website-blocking legislation that passed the senate on Monday night. The legislation allows rights holders to request a judge to order ISPs to block sites such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents. Burke uses colourful language to describe ISPs, saying their business models are based on "renting space to what I call a treasure trove of stolen goods".

"In quieter moments some ISPs would say they've built their businesses on pornography, piracy and gambling," he says. "They are the big three sellers, which is not exactly noble." So why did the government act so fast in pursuing site-blocking and forcing industry to come up with a code? After all, it wasn't actually recommended in the law reform commission's recent review of copyright law. While not exactly clear, critics often point to the large donations political parties receive from rights holders, and Village is one of the biggest donors. Since 1998 it has spent close to $4.5 million in political donations, mostly on the Labor and Liberal parties. Burke says they're made "because we want to see and make a contribution to good government".

"We believe in the process and that's part of the legal process," he says. But does it afford him access or influence? "I don't think it affords special access," he says. So how long will Burke continue to serve as Village co-chief? He says he's "got no plans to move on". "I'm contracted for a further three years and beyond that I'm not even thinking about it!" We end our lunch and I attempt to pay the bill, as is the tradition. But Burke insists: It's on him.

Life and times 1942 Born in Ararat, Victoria

1956 Starts working for Roc Kirby at the town hall pictures as doorman, ticket taker and sweeper. Becomes manager within 2 years.

1960 Wins a scholarship to Melbourne University for a bachelor of arts but drops out after a few months to pursue a career at Village.

1968 Founds Roadshow Distributors for Roc Kirby.

1980 Starts 4-year role as the original commissioner of the Australian Film Commission

1980 Co-founds radio station 2DAY FM

1988 Becomes CEO of Village Roadshow

1992 Forges deal with Warner Bros to build Warner Bros Movie World Australia, which leads to eventual takeover of Sea World and creation of Wet'n'Wild

1998 Founds Village Roadshow Pictures together with Robert Kirby. The first major release is The Matrix.

2014 Joins a group of rights holders and starts lobbying the government on internet piracy