Letters to the Editor

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A Bigger Australia 

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SIR: Reading Patrick Morgan’s “The Geopolitical Case for a Big Australia” (December 2011), reminded me how I also used Tasmania to illustrate population densities. From April 1993 to September 1995, I was fully engaged in developing a Master Plan study for the development of the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam. This delta is a roughly triangular area of some 17,000 square kilometres with its apex at Hanoi. In order to highlight the magnitude of the task, I used to tell my listeners to envisage an area one quarter the size of Tasmania in which a population equivalent to that of Australia was living. In Morgan’s list of densely populated regions, I am surprised that he did not include the island of Java with an area of 132,187 square kilometres and a population of 133 million, one of the most densely populated regions in the world, and also Bangladesh where 143 million live in an area of 147,570 square kilometres. 

It is often asserted that Australia has insufficient water resources to support a much larger population. Yet just considering surface water resources and not including groundwater resources, Australia has available 10,941 cubic metres per person per annum. The corresponding figure for Israel is 341, the United Kingdom 2,041, Germany 2,421 and the USA 9,011. Admittedly two thirds of our resources lie north of the Tropic of Capricorn where only about 5 per cent of our population dwells and the temporal variability of runoff is much greater than that in the other countries cited. There should be no obstacle now to the transfer of some of this water to the south. There is a huge untapped resource of tidal power in north-western Australia and the technology is now available to transmit electricity across Torres Strait utilising the vast hydro-electric potential lying undeveloped in Papua New Guinea. Thus the main constraint to a big Australia would appear to be the lack of political will.

J.A.H. Brown, Wentworth Falls, NSW.
 

SIR: Patrick Morgan’s “The Geopolitical Case for a Big Australia” and Michael Kile’s “The Politics of Demography” (December 2011) were interesting contributions to an important issue: How Big an Australia? And, perhaps to focus the issue, Should Australia be the choice for so many economic and other refugees? 

However, Morgan worked mostly on the surely outdated measure of population density. It is much more complex than that and the discussion must embrace other measures: shallow seas with easily mined minerals or energy supplies are more useful than a large area of desert—though if there are minerals deserts are fine! Maybe total rainfall? (I believe New Zealand has the same amount of total rain falling on it as Australia.) But with desalination we can push that limit, too—at an energy cost. Total energy resources—oil and gas and coal? Hm. Wind and sun too? It’s not easy.

Then, discussion must be about the long view—not just a few decades, but centuries. It must also take cognisance of the nature of the economic base. Two elements of that are mining and agriculture. Mining is a once-only act, not repeatable. Agriculture is a renewable activity, creating its own seeds and young animals in perpetuity and provided this is done sustainably, it can go on and on. Sustainability issues include protecting high-grade land and adding to the soil all nutrients exported in product sales, and having strong research support, all threatened in this era.

Thus, one can understand the fear of many people that some time in the future Australia might be a continent on which the valued minerals have been mined out (or substitutes have been found elsewhere) and a much larger population will have sprawled its cities and related activities widely. Cities will have extended over most of the more easily cultivated and best-watered soils, which happen to be nearer the coast, and most of the more cheaply available water will have been allocated to cities and their interests, little available for agriculture. Australia may be a much less attractive place for a large population, but it will be too late to turn back.

David F. Smith, Melbourne, Vic. 

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Stonehenge and the Solstice 

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SIR: Paul Monk’s interesting survey of the winter solstice festivals (December 2011) should not have included Stonehenge so unquestioningly. Nobody really knows what went on there thousands of years ago, and the theories have been almost as varied as the costumes of the New Age people who frequent the place today.

In 1970 I took an ABC microphone into the centre of the circle on June 21 to record the first ceremony permitted to the Neo-Druids who had seized on the rising interest in the occult to come out of the woodwork. Then, the summer solstice was all the go; today fashions have changed and the fakers and mystics turn out in mid-winter. Perhaps the cold keeps the crowds down and helps to avoid the riots that occurred in 1985 when 20,000 people fought a pitched battle with the Wiltshire police.

The latest theory is that there is another stone circle, Bluehenge, down by the River Avon, which lines up perfectly with its big brother at certain celestial moments, and that the two featured in ritualistic burial ceremonies. Anyway, with English weather, you are unlikely to see the sun rise or set—as we all found that misty marijuana-filled morning in 1970.

Geoffrey Luck, Sydney, NSW. 

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Threats and Fearful Societies 

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SIR: Peter Smith (January-February 2012) expresses concern at the failure of our free societies to deal with looming threats before they become immediate. But to regard those serious threats that he discusses as existential is drawing a very long bow. Perhaps the Second World War or the threat of nuclear holocaust could be described as existential issues but even then they were dealt with, certainly at great expense but effectively for all that. To turn his argument around in respect of the rise of Hitler, it would have been very difficult in 1933 to justify pre-emptive action against his taking office as German Chancellor on the basis of what he wrote in Mein Kampf. There is a strong case for believing that a forceful Anglo-French response to Hitler’s occupation of the Rhineland in 1935 might have put an end to his regime. The problem was that neither Britain nor France were at that time “optimistic” societies. Rather, in the aftermath of the holocaust of the First World War, they were very fearful societies.

What we do see in our free societies is a tendency to give credence to apocalyptic conclusions about threats. With hindsight we can see that the threat of nuclear holocaust during the Cold War was overstated, that the control systems on both sides allowed them to wave the big stick without any intention of using it. Probably down the track we will realise that the allegedly existential threat of catastrophic climate change was another furphy resulting from the fevered imaginations of scientists turned political activists.

As I write, today’s newspaper reports that another group of scientists who control the PR exercise known as the Doomsday Clock have ticked it over another minute towards the midnight when we all die in a nuclear holocaust. Significantly, the same group had turned the clock back a minute with the election of President Obama, a notable comment on their political judgment—or bias. Apparently the brooding dispute between Iran on the one hand and the USA and Israel on the other over Iran’s nuclear program threatens us all with nuclear holocaust.

Alarmism certainly has a role to play in maintaining security, especially, say, in my personal security when it comes to walking down certain city streets in the wee hours. On the other hand, there is a tendency in our once optimistic societies for governments to play up threats to persuade people to take their security more seriously. The list is almost endless as we are all abjured to eat less, eat better, ride bicycles, run for cover on hot days, don’t smoke and so on. Some actions by government have become extreme. On a recent plane trip from Darwin in a low threat situation, this somewhat decrepit old pensioner with all the other passengers was X-rayed, partially stripped and body-searched, then tested for explosive traces before being graciously permitted to wait for his flight. On the trip to Darwin by train, no security was evident. Perhaps the airport security staff were simply trying to justify their existence.

All this is done in the name of combatting terrorism. But terrorism, even jihadist terrorism, is not an existential threat. The 9/11 attack on the United States was a serious atrocity but it was not the mark of an existential threat. On that day, President Bush went on record to say quite correctly that terrorism was a crime to be dealt with by intelligence and police services. Then he spoiled it all by launching the futile War on Terror which has arguable achieved little at great cost. Terrorism is not—and never will be—a spent force but, as any number of prosecutions have shown, it can be and is contained by effective intelligence and police work within the rule of law. Security will help but, as experience tells us, only at the margins.

If we have a problem in this much less than optimistic age, it is that we tend unrealistically to build up relatively minor and manageable security issues into existential threats demanding increasingly illiberal responses. Even during the height of the Cold War, we never did that.

Michael O’Connor, Gisborne, Vic.  

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Queen of Australia 

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SIR: John Hill (Letters, January-February 2012) queried the use in Australia of the Queen’s title “Elizabeth II”. He asserted that the Queen “is definitely Elizabeth II of England, but not of Scotland, nor of Australia” and he inferred that we relate to the Queen “only via the imperial connection with England”. John Hill is wrong on all counts.

Elizabeth II is definitely not the Queen of England, for there has been no such title or person since May 1, 1707, when England and Scotland joined to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain during the reign of Queen Anne.

Elizabeth II definitely is the Queen of Australia because the Australian Parliament conferred that title on her in 1953. The Royal Style and Titles Act was passed by the Australian Parliament on February 25, 1953, and received the Royal Assent and came into operation on April 3, 1953.

David Smith, Mawson, ACT. 

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Indigenous Protocols 

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SIR: Anyone interested in reconciliation in Australia will feel saddened by Christopher Akehurst’s article, “Smoking Out Evil Spirits at the CSIRO” (January-February 2012). Those on the staff at the CSIRO who worked on the protocols in question, almost certainly in consultation with Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, will feel affronted at the disparaging tone.

To single out the CSIRO for “abandoning scientific rigour for feel-goodery” is to show an astounding ignorance of the depth and breadth of this practice by so many other organisations in Australia as well as its rationale and intent.

At the last count almost 300 government departments (both Commonwealth and states/territories), corporations (big and small), non-government organisations of all colours, and schools have developed a Reconciliation Action Plan in which a welcome to country or an acknowledgment is one small demonstration of respect for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as the first peoples of this nation, respect for their ongoing connection (not ownership) to the land, and respect for our joint history, in which indigenous peoples were dispossessed, dispersed and disadvantaged by the power of the gun and parliament.

Akehurst’s tirade continues with a suggestion that the CSIRO might bring in theologians and form a department “devoted to scientific investigation of spirits”. This is a cheap shot, which is best countered by a reminder that the legal profession begins each year with a church service and our governments employ prayers at every opening of parliament. More and more people in the legal profession and in politics also invite local custodians to perform a welcome or acknowledge country at special events. All such practices sit side by side nicely, are becoming the norm, and contribute to reconciliation.

I for one, and I am not alone, use the opportunity to acknowledge country as a way to learn about the local Aboriginal people and local history wherever I happen to be working. I live in hope that one day the majority of Australians will be familiar with and value the many nations, language groups, contributions and differing views of local histories as a result of participating in small acts of reconciliation such as this.

Bill Gammage’s new book The Biggest Estate on Earth should be on Mr Akehurst’s reading list—it might explain why a scientific organisation like the CSIRO might want to embrace indigenous protocols into their modus operandi.

K.A. Nelson, O’Connor, ACT. 

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Proper Cabinet Process 

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SIR: John Stone’s explanation for his opposition to important parts of the Hawke government’s 1983 decisions on exchange rate management (January-February 2012) mostly comes down to an objection to the way the decisions were made. But what he describes is exactly how a properly managed cabinet process is supposed to work.

In Mr Stone’s telling, the ministers with the main responsibility for economic policy participated in a series of meetings and written exchanges with public servants and expert ministerial staff members. The facts and arguments pertinent to the decision were progressively drawn out and debated. Ministers, when they felt they knew enough, made decisions which responded to the immediate exigency of an exchange rate crisis while consciously opening up longer term opportunities for reform.

I worked in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and was responsible for the department’s support of the cabinet process between 2001 and 2007 when John Howard insisted on high standards. I also assisted with the recently published centenary history of the department by Patrick Weller, Joanne Scott and Bronwyn Stephens which describes the development of the Australian Commonwealth cabinet system and the arrangements under which public servants advise ministers on policy.

Fresh from this, I see nothing in the process Mr Stone describes that offends the rules and conventions of cabinet decision-making. What stands out in Mr Stone’s description is not bad process; it is Bob Hawke’s exceptional skill in balancing competing political and policy considerations and getting full value from a cast of difficult players.

It seems that John Stone was neither the most valuable nor the least difficult of these. It is to his credit that he refrained from the public spoiling role on the decisions that some feared from him. More than that, he helped to create, over a period of years, the climate of opinion that made it politically possible for the Hawke government to take brave and good decisions. But when the reform opportunity came in 1983 he advocated delay and an approach that would have been easier to subvert than the one the government chose.

Perhaps paradoxically, the government’s braver course was less risky than Mr Stone’s cautious one. In any case, it was for the government, not him, to decide.

We should applaud those responsible for the decisions, both for listening to Mr Stone and for rejecting his arguments. They got the process right; he got an important part of the substance wrong.

Peter Hamburger, Hughes, ACT. 

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The “F” Word

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SIR: While I was extremely disappointed to read the poor quality poem in the December edition of Quadrant, I was even more amazed to see that the poem, “The F Word Becomes Integral to the Grieving Process” by Christine Paice, contains the “F” word. I shuddered to think what James McAuley would have thought.

The federal Labor minister Stephen Conroy was recently widely castigated for using such language. Why should readers of Quadrant be subjected to such language in your magazine? Please maintain some standards.

 Andrew Green (via e-mail). 

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Pidyon Haben 

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SIR: I refer to Ben Sharafski’s story “Return to Carthage” (January-February 2012).

I have no knowledge of Carthage’s history or numismatics, but as someone who has practised the custom of Pidyon Haben, I take issue with the author’s inexplicable inclusion of this custom in his discussion of child sacrifice.

The custom of Pidyon Haben relates to the “redemption of the first born” son by a father who himself was a first-born son. Originally, God intended for the first-born son of each Jewish family to be a Cohen—that is, that family’s representative to the Holy Temple (Exodus 13:1–2, Exodus 24:5). But when Moses came down from Mount Sinai and saw the Golden Calf he smashed the Tablets and issued an ultimatum: “Make your choice—either God or the idol” (Exodus 32:26).

Only the tribe of Levi came to the side of God. So at that point, God decreed that each family’s first-born son would forfeit their “Cohen” status—and henceforth all Cohens would come only from the tribe of Levi (Numbers 3:11–12). Since the first-born son is technically a Cohen, whose potential can no longer be actualised, he has to be replaced (so to speak) by a Cohen from the tribe of Levi. This is accomplished by the father offering a Cohen a redemptive donation for his first-born son.

Gaby Berger, Point Piper, NSW.  

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What No Man Knoweth 

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SIR: As a regular communicant in the Anglican Church I take exception to Bernard d’Abrera’s reference to the Reformers’ “forgeries” (Letters, January-February 2012).

Matthew 24:36 is translated as follows in the following versions:

KJV: “But of that day and hour knoweth no man no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

Douai Rheims: “But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.”

RSV: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”

What is the difference?

David Chapman (via e-mail). 

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Translation and Toleration

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SIR: Reading Bernard d’Abrera’s letter and article published in the January-February 2012 issue left me disappointed. In the former, his claims concerning biblical translation and European theocracies are defective. In the latter, he understates implications that political Islam raises not only for religious toleration, but also the philosophical underpinnings of constitutional democracy.

Mr d’Abrera’s claim (based on the rendition of Matthew 24:36) that the latest RSV is a Protestant forgery is wanton. As one of robust Catholic faith, Mr d’Abrera knows that biblical translation proceeds without the autographs of the New Testament writers, which are presumably lost. This weighty task therefore relies not only on later authorities, but also on the chance discovery of ancient manuscripts, as well as opinion that evolving scholarly criticism and refinement inevitably generate. Why is it that the translators of the seventeenth-century KJV (Protestant) and Douai-Rheims (Catholic) English Bibles don’t “have Christ denying His omniscience” and those of the modern (Catholic) New Jerusalem and (OUP) New Revised Standard Version Bibles do? I suggest that the answer is in the modern renditions’ alignment with the texts of the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, neither of which became publicly accessible until the mid-nineteenth century. In their express acknowledgment of this difference, does Mr d’Abrera seriously regard the “forgers” of my annotated NRSV as plea-bargaining?

With regard to surviving “unscriptural” unions of church and civil states, doesn’t the (Catholic) Holy See’s government of the Vatican City state serve as premier exemplar of autocratic religious rule over a civil jurisdiction? Although the union of the English and Scottish Parliaments concluded in 1707 provides for the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland continuing as Scotland’s “established church”, Mr d’Abrera’s enumeration of Europe’s surviving Protestant theocracies omits this particular country as it does the Republic of Finland, where the Evangelical Lutheran Church is recognised constitutionally as a national church entitled to state protection and support.

I’m unable to comment on religious institutions in Europe’s Lutheran hereditary monarchies but, as an Anglican, I’m au fait with the contemporary Church of England where, in spite of some enduring overlays of British political and ecclesiastical institutions (especially the English Royal Supremacy and Act of Settlement), the post-war history of the nexus tilts not only towards progressive dilution, but also to increased public accountability for the management and use of the Church of England’s substantial material resources. For example, a joint select committee of the British Parliament rigorously scrutinises bills proposed as ecclesiastical measures for their compatibility with the constitutional rights of British citizens; the royal peculiars (the best known being Westminster Abbey) must now report annually with independently audited accounts; and registration of incidents attached to monastic land impropriated in the reign of Henry VIII ends this year. Transparency of this kind hardly typifies theocracy in its currently accepted sense.

Turning to Mr d’Abrera’s critique of Islam. As with Christianity, core tenets of Islamic belief derive historically from elements of ancient Judaism, with some facets stemming from primitive Christianity, and that’s where I’d contend meaningful comparisons end. First, as reputed modern Muslim scholars of the West explicitly (and bravely) concede, Islam has neither Koranic interpretation nor doctrinal tradition that assists reconciliation of a Muslim’s faith and practice with democratic constitutional apparatus, essential components of which must include, by definition, non-establishment of religion and its free exercise (that is, religious pluralism and its toleration). Second, the same scholars also argue that the Western notion of a university as a community in pursuit of free and unrestrained intellectual inquiry is foreign to Islam, for which philosophical or historical critiquing of the divine and prophetic would be incomprehensible; Islamic culture eagerly embraces the West’s science and technology but not the rationalist and humanist culture which enables these to flourish. Logically, this restrictive mentality must extend to law and justice, given that the sharia’s key sources are incontrovertibly Koranic and thereby divinely gifted—unlike the alleged barbarity of Code Napoléon or Common Law jurisprudence, fashioned as these are by human hands that are purportedly prone to error, if not corruption.

An important appellate case to which the New South Wales Attorney-General did not refer in his speech, but one that’s highly relevant to key issues that Mr d’Abrera canvasses, is House of Peace v Bankstown City Council (2000), which tested whether or not a community of Bangladeshi Muslims could convert a former suburban Presbyterian church into a mosque. The court (over which an eminent and professed Anglican jurist presided) favoured the mosque, essentially holding that, in an evolving secular context, the approved use of a site as a Christian church could be expanded through “liberal and generic interpretation” to incorporate public worship of any other bona fide religion. While agreeing with the wisdom of the judgement, I can’t remotely imagine a sharia tribunal being similarly disposed either to “liberal and generic interpretation” were a redundant mosque proposed for conversion to a church or to there being any other “bona fide religion” apart from Islam. Democratisation of Islamic societies has scarcely started and I personally anticipate that expressions of extremism perpetrated in the name of religion by Muslims, as well as non-Muslims, will continue occurring across the globe. I and many other readers will hold that theocracy, especially of an Islamic variety, has no place in Australia’s constitution, yet Mr d’Abrera, through his habitual derision of non-Catholic Christian communions, coupled with careless theocratic comparison, weakens the importance of issues which, in many other respects, he compellingly argues.

John Williams, Balmain, NSW. 

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Gods True and False 

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SIR: Reg Naulty (Letters, January-February 2012) wills not to understand anything I have written these past months. His letter is a deeply offensive mishmash of the faux mysticism and pantheistic syncretism so beloved of the Lodges and given untrammelled scope in the leftist Tri-lateralist dream of one world government, economy and religion. Yes, the Triune God is omniscient, omnipotent and eternal. He is also Absolute Goodness, all-loving, supremely transcendent, and in His Second Person He is Jesus Christ, True God and True Man (in Whom the Father is “well pleased”). Thus as a Christian, I will to adore, worship, love and fear Jesus Christ, my Creator, Redeemer and Saviour, with every fibre of my being. Remove Christ and you have a false god, because in so doing, you have effected a privation of Absolute Goodness. Such a self-defining Christ-less deity is Allah, who in the Koran verily screams out his own patent Christ-lessness (2:116, 4:171, 172, 5:16, 17, 5:71–73, 5:115, 9:29 and 19:88: “those who say the lord of mercy has begotten a son preach a monstrous falsehood …”).

Dr Naulty proposes that Christians like me are “in error”, and in order to avoid exploitation by “ignoble manipulators”, we should adopt “the (immanent) spirit that dissolveth Jesus” (1 John 4:3). His first paragraph contains the seed of the threat that has evolved into the velvet fist that imposes Human Rights Law, stifling dissent and debate because they upset humanist dreams of “peace at any price”—that “price” usually being Christ Himself, because His claims to Divinity offend the Muslims, an activist judiciary, and the leftist commentariat.

The Muslims, for their part, know better than Dr Naulty. Were he to trumpet his claim in a Muslim theocracy that their Allah is a “core” deity “merely (lacking) some attributes” (in particular, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost), he would find himself both “immanently and transcendentally” terminated forthwith! A Christ-less, Muslim god effectively deprives Islam of most of the justification for its militant proselytism. Recently 10,000 Malay-language Bibles were seized by Malaysian Customs because the nation’s ulema had objected on doctrinal grounds, that the appellation “Allah” was strictly specific to the Muslim religion and forbidden to Malay-speaking Christians. Were Dr Naulty to voice his syncretist opinions in Pakistan, the sharia courts there would employ due process of ijtihad (reason and judgment), followed by ijma (scholarly consensus), followed by qiyas (reasoning by analogy), and then fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The fiqh ruling returns to sharia proper, and finally, to the Koran itself. Thenceforth he must be charged with blasphemy, under Pakistan’s Penal Code 295, sections a, b, c, with the penalty varying from ten years, to life, to death. So much for Muslim outrage. As a Christian I can assure Dr Naulty that the Father would not be “well pleased” to have “His beloved Son” (and the Holy Ghost) reduced to “merely … some attributes” of Himself by eminent immanentists terrified of the inevitable self-driven confrontation of Allah’s Islam with Christ’s Church.

Bernard d’Abrera, Mount Dandenong, Vic. 

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Green Enemies of Free Speech

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SIR: Richard Allsop (January-February 2012) draws timely attention to the history of freedom of speech. In his first paragraph, he mentions possibly the greatest current threat to freedom of speech in Australia, the calls from the Greens in particular for the licensing of our newspapers.

It is ironic that the party that has most thrived and risen to power in Australia on the freedom of speech, assembly and demonstration is now the party leading the push to curb those very freedoms.

Also, we should all take notice that the Greens never mention any need to supervise or license the ABC, only those newspapers and individuals that don’t agree with their pseudo-religious views. Notice the propaganda language the Greens use to belittle their opponents—“deniers”, for example. The Quadrant community and sympathisers should take a tip from the Greens, and mobilise and be heard in protest. We owe it to those that come after us. 

Tony Andrews, Warrawee, NSW.