Letters to the Editor

Sir: The continuing campaign by Islamic organisations for the recognition of sharia-compliant wills and prenuptial agreements on the basis that they reflect their cultural values provides a striking illustration of the practice of taqqiya, or strategic dissimulation to advance the interests of Islam. It also brings to mind the aphorism that cultural relativism favours the interests of the powerful, and compounds the subordinate status of those who are disadvantaged under such allegedly culturally sanctioned arrangements.

In the most recent skirmish, the Federation of Islamic Organisations seeks to present the unequal distribution of deceased estates as between male and female beneficiaries as a sharia-sanctioned practice that does not reflect a lesser valuation of women, but simply recognises that males bear responsibility for the care and upkeep of disabled or aged relatives. That is, in the finest traditions of taqqiya, a partial truth, and one that obscures the pervasively and intractably inferior status accorded to women in all Muslim societies, as the Sudanese liberal reformer Abdullahi An-Na’im has observed. Its entrenchment in the sacred texts, practices and jurisprudence of Islam has in no way been diminished by the presence of a mere two Koranic verses (49:13 and 33:35) among over 6000, referring favourably to women.

Moreover, if indeed such a cultural or religious norm exists, as the local champions of sharia—all of whom are men—claim, there is nothing to stop daughters from voluntarily returning some proportion of their equal inheritance to their brothers in recognition of their more onerous family responsibilities. After all, a norm can hardly be characterised as such if it only enjoys the support of that half of the relevant population that derives a material benefit from it. In this context, it should be noted that the present controversy arose, not from the arbitrary or gratuitous interference in Muslim affairs by Australian kuffir authorities, but from litigation initiated by a Muslim woman seeking a more equitable distribution of her mother’s estate, who presumably did not subscribe to the alleged norm being propounded by those who claim (with sparse evidence and diminishing plausibility) to speak for “the Australian Muslim community”.

If Australian Muslim males are so burdened by their family responsibilities, one might reasonably expect that they would welcome their emancipation by the Australian courts, and demand that their sisters accept equal responsibility for the care of dependent family members. Instead, they continue to rail against any departure from sharia prescriptions, suggesting that what is at stake here is the loss of power over family members, and especially females, that these “family responsibilities”, and the resources that go with them, provide.

The pragmatic justification for this inequality is also open to question. Whilst one might expect responsibility for the care of disabled or aged relatives to be a matter that requires formalised codification within a culturally homogeneous, impoverished society united by common religious traditions, its necessity and appropriateness when transplanted into a more diverse, individualistic and prosperous community, in which a range of state-funded support services are available to all incapacitated citizens, is highly questionable. 

As the European Court of Human Rights observed in the Refah Partisi cases, legal pluralism, other than the consensual private arbitration of commercial disputes, is crudely discriminatory, and has no place in any rights-observant secular democracy. The Commonwealth Attorney-General is to be commended for her recent categorical rejection of any recognition of sharia by Australian courts, and her defence of the fundamental principles of universality, non-discrimination and equality before the law.

David Young, Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK

Sir: What is Peter Jonson’s article, “The Mysteries of the Floating Dollar” (April 2012) really about? His Henry Thornton website item says of it: “Greatly stimulated by former Treasury Secretary John Stone’s new year gift to the nation [my January-February Quadrant article, ‘Floating the Dollar: Facts and Fiction’], we have been so bold as to tell the story from an RBA perspective.” The introductory sarcasm aside, that is an entirely proper objective.

In truth, however, only part of the article addresses that objective. More of it is addressed to misrepresentations and “speculations” about my own role in the process.

Dr Jonson says, “Stone’s argument against floating the dollar in December 1983 is that the time was not right, that the proper case had not been made, and he believed that more ‘evolution’ was needed.” In fact, my article merely sought to correct the misinformation about the Treasury’s (and my) role in that decision, purveyed for twenty-eight years by assorted politicians, journalists and economists.

In the course of doing that, I did note that the December 1983 decision was taken “Without Submission” by Hawke and Keating only; that during the preceding two months (after I first raised the issue with Keating on October 8) no written submissions formulating the case for the float were ever put to the Economic Policy Committee of Cabinet (let alone Cabinet itself); and that my own preference throughout was for a more “evolutionary” approach.

As to that last, the difference between us seems to be this: as Secretary to the Treasury, I was responsible (as was the RBA’s Governor) for advising the government of the course likely to be in its, and Australia’s, best interests. Dr Jonson, then heading the RBA’s Research Department, had no such responsibilities. The choice before the government (the end—floating the dollar—having already been agreed) was akin to that confronting the man who, standing before a ten-metre drop, has to choose between jumping down and hoping to land safely, or taking a pathway down that will take a little longer, but which will guarantee his safe arrival. Dr Jonson argued for jumping. Having in mind, among other things, the then fragile state of the economy, I preferred—and would defend that preference to this day—the “evolutionary” approach. (Incidentally, even if the man happened to land fairly safely—as the government did in this case—that would in no way deny the recklessness involved.)

Dr Jonson discerns two “mysteries”. First, he says, action taken (at his urging) in late 1980 or early 1981 already “amounted to implementing a floating forward rate”; so how to explain the October 1983 decision to float the forward rate? Second, referring to the so-called “War Book”, he says, “When the time came for papers to be written for Cabinet immediately before the decision to float, this material was the basis for two papers written by the Reserve Bank”; yet these “were not formalised as Cabinet papers …”

As to the first, the forward rate for our dollar was certainly not floating when, on October 27, Hawke and Keating decided, on my recommendation, to allow it to do so. If Dr Jonson still doubts that, I can only refer him to the press releases issued on October 28 by the RBA itself and by Keating, announcing the decision.

On his second “mystery”, no such RBA papers were ever presented, either before or during the December 9 discussions. The “War Book” consisted principally of a list of purely technical “things to be done” in such circumstances. I can only conjecture that Dr Jonson may be thinking of the two papers, referred to in Decisions Nos 2620(EP) and 2621(EP), dealing with various technical issues arising from the float decision, that were put together by RBA and Treasury officials during the luncheon break after the float decision had been taken.

It is regrettable that, in category (4) of his article, Dr Jonson should have descended to a series of ad hominems. For example (among others): “Such opposition … might (I speculate) have been the response of an institution overly conditioned to oppose the government of the day”; and “assuming Treasury was the reforming institution Stone says it was, how do we explain the Fraser years, which are famous for their lack of economic reform?” On the whole, I think it best not to dignify these, and some other, slurs with a response.

Finally, I refer to the equally extraordinary, and no less distasteful, letter from Peter Hamburger (“Proper Cabinet Process”, March 2012). He objects to my criticism of the then government’s lack of “due process” in its float decision, saying that my description of the events “is exactly how a properly managed cabinet process is supposed to work”.

Strangely, Mr Hamburger seems to think that my article was directed to the “due process” question. As pointed out above, that aspect was merely incidental. How Mr Hamburger could conclude otherwise is beyond me (or, I believe, impartial readers). On the due process issue itself, however, those same impartial readers will judge for themselves the orderliness of the decision-making process involved. I have no doubt as to their verdict.

As authority for his opinion, Mr Hamburger says that he “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”. No doubt, but the role referred to is that of a clerk—albeit, of course, one of some significance in the record-keeping scheme of things. Such a clerk may, or may not, be an appropriate authority on what constitutes “due process”, dependent upon the breadth of his other studies and experience, but there is no evidence for that—indeed, the contrary—in Mr Hamburger’s letter.

Among other personal animadversions, Mr Hamburger says it is to my “credit that he [i.e., I] refrained from the public spoiling role on the decisions that some feared from him”. Who on earth were these unnamed persons, entertaining “fears” that could only reflect their own standards of behaviour? He also says that I “advocated delay and an approach that would have been easier to subvert than the one the government chose”. There is a major difference between “delay” and my advocacy of “evolution, not revolution”, while the reference to the possibility of “subversion” is simply offensive.

My July-August 2011 Quadrant article, “The Degradation of the Public Service”, which was received with fury in predictable quarters in Canberra, reprised a previously unpublished paper to a Mont Pelerin Society meeting almost twenty-six years earlier. In that paper, “Meretricious Players—and Others”, I said that (for reasons given) “I think our advisory system in Australia would be healthier if the Prime Minister’s Department were to be abolished”. If nothing else, Mr Hamburger has provided further substance for that view.

John Stone, Sydney, NSW

Sir: I write in some frustration brought about by the piece by Ray Evans (April 2012) in which he carefully dismantles the years of industrial law enacted and controlled by successive Australian parliaments.

He may well be correct in his critique, although his use of the alleged failures of the industrial laws to relate to falling living standards is moot when one can draw a graph showing the rise in population is also in direct proportion to falling living standards. Statistics!

May I ask that Ray and his fellow conservative warrior contributors to Quadrant clearly set out the industrial policy that the Coalition should espouse in the next election campaign? Over years of unreserved complaint and condemnation I have not seen a constructive, cohesive industrial policy put forward by those who can fill pages with destructive complaint of existing laws. Why not?

Colin Pratt, Surrey Hills, Vic

Sir: There seems to be one simple and painless answer to the demographic disaster for the West predicted by Mervyn F. Bendle (April 2012) and others. That is: tax breaks for large families. To prevent abuse of this, unassimilated immigrants would not be eligible. This would doubtless produce an outcry from the politically correct, but such could be safely ignored. More votes would be gained than would be lost.

Hal G.P. Colebatch, Nedlands, WA