The Fred Hollows foundation journos page will be online tomorrow. See Happy new year for details. There’ll be a pointer on the front page of smh.com.au; the address will be smh.com.au/news/specials/hollows. To contribute to the page, email the page editor, Amanda Vaughan, at hollows@fairfax.com.au. I’ll be in South Africa from early next month and will contribute to the Hollows Webpage. Webdiary will lie low from then until the end of March.
I’m finding this Enron saga completely compelling. The more that comes out, the more obvious it is that this company systematically compromised all available checks and balances, had no ethics regarding its staff or shareholders and thought nothing of not only paying no tax, but claiming taxpayer rebates. The presence of management gurus McKinsey’s throughout Enron’s rise is also a fascination, as its the fact that it began life as a privatised gas company.
Anderson’s, the auditors, had lucrative other work with Enron, and when the shit hit the fan destroyed documents. Enron successfully lobbied Congress to stop any outside scrutiny of the energy futures market in which it operated, and to stop the shutting of its tax avoidance schemes. The Regulator agreed to delay examination of Enron’s accounts because it was underfunded and the accounts were so complicated the bottom drawer looked enticing. Several high profile Enron board members received Enron funding for their other activities. Enron threw cash at the Republicans and some Democrats, and directly influenced energy policy to suit itself. At the end, the chief executive sold more than $100 million shares at the same time as he told employees reliant on their Enron shareholdings for their retirement incomes to hold on.
The result: avoidance of scrutiny by anyone, scams to disguise company losses, huge bucks for the big boys throughout the system, huge losses for the punters and the smell of a rotting system.
The inescapable conclusion is that self-regulation is a nonsense, conflicts of interest are endemic, and rampant unregulated capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction, as well as that of good government and professionalism among professionals.
It’s the end-game of neo-liberalism, where only money and self-interest in terms of getting more of it matters. How can other values be re-elevated, to save capitalism from itself? And is the Yank’s version of capitalism really the one we should emulate? I hope lots of experts jump on this example to really learn from it conceptually, rather than pick at the edges of it. And I wonder whether Enron is just the beginning of the unwinding of the Yank’s economic miracle and will finally break the dominance of the neo-liberal “value system”.
As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a great summary of what Enron business actually did to get so big and powerful in the quarterly report of Australian fund manager Platinum Asset Management. enron, on page 8.
At the end of this entry is a statement by a group called VOW with a suggested process for a fairer, more stable world. Pie in the sky stuff, but something’s gotta give, surely.
Today, regulars David Davis, Robert Lawton and Allison Newman debut for 2001 on Woomera, the Hanson legacy, and David Hicks, all issues on which Australians are sharply divided, as shown in contributions by Derek, Sara Michell, Graham Hawkins, Barry Rutherford, Ryan Carrington, Noel Hadjimichael and Neale Talbot.
The three issues seem to merge somehow. Goodbye rule of law. Goodbye the presumption of innocence, goodbye the universality of human rights as a foundational principle of liberal democracy. Without all those, only might is right.
WOOMERA
David Davis in Switzerland
Happy New Year! I hope your Christmas period was fun – mine was and it was great to be back in Sydney, if only for a short time. It’s evening in Switzerland and I just got home to reports on the evening television news about mouths being sewed up in detention camps in Australia. I’m angry.
I had thought earlier in the day that these stories don’t seem to come out of any other civilized country. Now I see it is at centre stage internationally again. Australia is in prime time in Europe again. Mr Ruddock says that the practice offends the sensitivities of Australians. I actually think sensitivities are being offended everywhere, for various reasons and many are not the same as Mr Ruddock’s reasons. I’m offended and it’s not by the people in the camps.
I’d rather just forget the whole thing. Block it out, ignore it, not my problem.
The more grotesque it becomes, the easier it gets. For some at least. I mean this is unbelievable. A large number of genuine refugees (we can’t nominate the exact percentage) locked up in the desert, others being sent to poor neighbours in the Pacific, the kids being tossed in the water story, lips being sewed up….. all in all it is an ugly picture.
I find it extraordinarily difficult to connect with majority opinion on this issue. I tried at Christmas and failed. The Tampa even sailed right past us on Sydney Harbour at one stage. I couldn’t believe it – to literally have it in my face! My reaction to seeing it though was not the same as those I was with. I’ve never felt less connected.
At one stage over Christmas I was attacked as being a kind of “Fairfax/ABC” person. It went on and on and on. This is where I feel I have entered some kind of separate orbit. I do not regard myself as a dreaded “chardonnay socialist” (I suppose that term is now as dated as sun dried tomatoes), but have been shunted into that camp because I dare to question the orthodoxy. It is clearer than ever that one form of political correctness HAS replaced another. You are spot on with that Margo. Somehow I have ended up being “incorrect” in both cycles! Such a contrarian!
Australia has much to be proud of in the area of refugee resettlement. There certainly hasn’t been much of a reason to apply the black arm band to that history. Until now. It really didn’t have to be this way. In reality we could have adopted a more humane approach without opening the floodgates. This era will be sorely regretted.
The economy in Australia is walking all over the rest of the western world. No other country has such growth rates and such a favourable outlook. It is a wonderful thing, but it makes the lack of compassion and bloody mindedness all the more unforgivable. Rich, selfish, small, inward and isolated – when all the reasons exist to be the opposite.
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Derek in Sydney
Before we get too hysterical about lip sewing or Phillip Ruddock’s (non) reaction to it, the whole situation in the Woomera Detention Centre should be put in context. It’s a political arm wrestle. No more, no less. The acts by the detainees (like arson and vandalism and hunger strikes and lip sewing) are designed to draw media attention and influence public opinion. Ruddock is playing the role of political opponent as best he can. It could be attack dogs on the waterfront or greenies chaining themselves to trees in virgin bushland or violence on a union picket line. It happens not to be.
It should be understood that anyone from Afghanistan is on the verge of being sent home. Having risked lives and life’s savings, the gamble looks like not paying off. One last gamble has to be worth their while. Perhaps if we actually reach the point of preparing the Afghanis for departure, New Zealand will bail us out again (and while they’re at it could they let us win at least one cricket match?).
Sure, this arm wrestle is a little more confronting than we are used to. (Gee, am I echoing Ruddock here? Australians simply don’t like confrontation.) Sure, it would be nice if the stakes weren’t quite so obviously people’s futures but we weren’t given any easy choices and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
To add to Brendan’s comments about Ruddock’s strategy in Decency, our way, I would like to make the observation that Ruddock is unremittingly calm. Minister of Immigration is a tough job right now and it would be easy to be loud and rude. I believe the consistent non-reaction is part of the strategy. It is a contrast to the detainees. Is this “non-violent” racism? (I would also like to thank Tim Dymond and Brendan for their help in the numbing down of the word “racist”. “Wolf!”)
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Sara Michell in Surry Hills, Sydney
I think Mr Ruddock and Mr Howard should be indicted for Crimes Against Humanity. Come on Australians, what has happened to our values of mateship and fairplay, or does that only apply to white Australians?(MARGO: Except for David Hicks.)
I feel sickened by the treatment of asylum seekers by the Australian Government, but Australians voted them in. My Danish Grandfather was in the Resistance in Denmark during WW11 against German Occupation, and that tiny country saved nearly all its Jewish people from concentration camps by helping them escape to Sweden. He would be rolling in his grave to see a so called civilised democratic country such as Australia treating refugees in the way we are.
It’s time to stand up and get active do what we can to change this appalling situation.
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Ryan Carrington
I have enclosed a copy of a letter I will proudly send to Mr Ruddock……I am hoping some healthy discussion and debate could ensue if this is published.
Mr Ruddock,
In a time where, due to our obviously objective media (not) , you seem to be receiving somewhat negative publicity I would like to commend and congratulate you on your firm position with regards to asylum seekers on Australian soil.
Too often, I watch our political representatives make the promises only to do a major backflip when the pressure starts to tell. Refreshingly, you have not succumbed to this pressure and continue to maintain your tough but fair position.
While these asylum seekers continue to mutilate themselves in the name of desperation and continue to burn and damage Australian property at tax payers expense, they win no brownie points with me. To claim refugee status, they must have come from areas where their lives are in imminent danger, where simple existence is not assured. They and their misguided sympathisers then have the audacity to feel justified in making uneducated and downright slanderous claims about their treatment while in “detention”. Compared to the conditions they were forced to endure before applying to become refugees, our “detention” centres must be a Sheraton hotel.
Let them continue to mutilate themselves and those that don’t like the way we do things in Australia honestly don’t have to be here …. we don’t force them to stay. It is very simple, very logical and very fair, something that even our massive cultural differences can’t blur understanding of. These people claim they are desperate for a new life …. if it takes 2 years of “detention” for processing of an application, then so be it. It’s better than being dead if you ask me.
Keep up the good work and weather the storm you face – I fear it will be a severe one. For too long we have needed these tough measures and the tough decision makers to make it all happen. I am confident, given your recent track record, that we have finally found the man for the job.
DAVID HICKS
Robert Lawton in Adelaide
The world’s most newsworthy Australian today might not be Nicole Kidman, but a man in shackles, mittens and a mask, jailed in a dot of US territory surrounded by guns and wire.
The remarkable bowing and scraping to America by Daryl Williams and Robert Hill over the fate of David Hicks has saddened but hardly surprised me. In the end the difference between the ALP and Coalition on “terror” (ie revenge attacks by the USA on Al Qaeda) is minute.
There are reportedly three British citizens at Guantanamo Bay. Not only have their country’s diplomatic representatives visited them, there is fierce opposition on UK Labor’s backbench to their continued, indefinite detention by the US in apparently inhuman conditions; and further, heavy criticism of the US’ characterisation of the Guantanamo men as being beyond the reach of international law on prisoners of war.
Interestingly enough, the Guardian reports on Monday 21 January that a crossparty parliamentary committee has condemned the US’ attitude.
Where is the Australian critique of America? It seems limited to an Adelaide solicitor, Stephen Kenny, searching for pro bono legal support in the US for the Hicks family.
How pathetic that neither our national government or opposition – not one backbencher or retiring senator – is strong enough to stand up and identify tyranny when they see it.
Or perhaps they truly cannot see. Once again we see in action the politicians we deserve…
***
Graham Hawkins
I hear the civil libertarians, left wing governments and others are starting to knuckle under as they see they way the prisoners, and prisoners they certainly are, are being treated at the camp in Cuba. Isn’t it interesting that a mere four months after the most horrific act of murder and cowardly terrorism that people seem to have developed selective memories?
As one US Officer said when interviewed, “These prisoners get fed, housed, showered and clothed. In fact they have better accommodation than I have, as I have to work 12 hour shifts and live in a tent”.
Come people, wake up. These people are the most dangerous people on the planet, these are people with absolutely no conscience, would kill you and I as soon as look at us, and would cheat justice by taking their own lives if they could. They are getting what they deserve and if they don’t like it they should have disassociated themselves from there actions a long time ago.
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HANSON LEGACY
Allison Newman in Point Clare, NSW
For me, the Hanson legacy can best be summed up by saying that we have returned to the political environment portrayed in D.H. Lawrence’s “Kangaroo”. And the funny thing is, when I read that novel at the Defence Academy, I thought that D.H. Lawrence must have been way off base. Shows how little I know.
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Noel Hadjimichael in Sydney
I listened to your contribution on Radio National’s Australia talks back last night and was pleased to note that the debate over the “culture wars” is still happening. In the wake of the federal election, Tony Abbott’s speech and the Hanson departure, the struggle to define what is the Australian political, social and economic consensus remains.
There may never have been any “consensus” in the last one hundred years – merely a dominant majoritarian perspective (such as White Australia in the 1920s, empire loyalists in the 1940s, anti communist in the 1950s, progressive on north-south issues in the 1970s and economic rationalism in the 1980s) and a minority counter opinion (such as anti-empire nationalism in the 1940s, anti-nuclear pacifism in the 1950s, anti-globalisation now).
What we have seen in the last 5-7 years has been the steady demise in public support for the Hawke/Keating settlement – economic rationalism laced with “progressive” policies on race, gender, human rights and national symbols. The deal was seductive to the Left – trust us (the Labor Right) to run the economy, and we give Australia a fresh start in social, welfare and international policy.
The inherent problem was the tension between true social change (which takes time to earn majority support beyond the elite) and immediate economic structural change (which happens straight away). (MARGO: My emphasis – great point!)
Many traditional working class and lower middle class Labor voters, neither ideological or part of the “patronage” system, saw shifts in social policy which they either didn’t agree with or didn’t fully understand whilst seeing their jobs or their kids jobs vanish, their (often regional) communities decline or their relative economic interest harmed (privatised services or no services).
The Howard government has tapped a strong vein of nationalism, concern over border control, rejection of symbolic change (e.g. the Republic and the Treaty push), downward envy of welfare rorts and a legitimate desire for stability, security and safety.
Howard didn’t wait for the US cavalry to arrive to do something about East Timor, attack Hanson for being a relatively naive and poorly educated public figure, make welfare easier to get or shy away from helping new non-public schools in areas like western Sydney get funding starts.
The culture wars are still being fought but I suspect that we have seen a new majoritarian perspective being adopted by the broader community. It is sceptical about government’s ability to improve outcomes, opposed to welfare enhancement, low migration focused, critical of symbolic change and desperately keen on low interest rate prosperity.
***
Neale Talbot in Sydney
The Australian government will spend almost $50M this year on the detention centres (or Detention Camps as CNN calls them [1]) that house the 2,500 thousand odd “illegal immigrants”. If only the people coming out of Afghanistan weren’t “illegal”, and had applied for legal immigration at the Australian Afghan embassy [2], then we wouldn’t have to spend all this money keeping them locked up until the war ends when we will ship them back home to complete safety[3].
But, say, what would have happened if we had taken that money and spent it on increasing the population of Australia by 0.015% by setting up the immigrants properly for their new stay. The $50m could be spread across the immigrants evenly at $20,000 a head. Add this to the new home-buyers grant, and each immigrant would have enough for a deposit on a house. With a mortgage to pay off, jobs would quickly follow. The money, in effect would be injected straight back into the Australian economy, and therefore (through taxes) back into the pocket of the Government. Immigration could become a national a cottage industry. But John Hanson … er, Howard, is hardly likely to accept such a stand, and so more money will be poured down the drain.
I’ve been reading the comments about Poor Pauline on the Webdiary, and none of them get to the core of Pauline; the fact that, in an absurd kind of way, she was calling for an end to the unspoken apartheid in Australia. After all, apartheid is essentially the policy or practice of separating or segregating groups of people in the one country, and that certainly the policy of our current government. Keep the foreigners off our shores (or in prison), keep the blacks in the bush (or in prison), keep the lebanese in Cabramatta (or in prison) and all will be well.
Pauline spoke against the different laws for Aborigines and white Australians. Pauline asked why ATSIC funding was not being properly managed and overseen like white organisations. Pauline demanded discussion about multiculturalism as opposed to balkanism. Her party, “One Nation” stood for equality for all, despite the colour of your skin. Australia, it seemed, was not prepared for that.
Of course, at the same time, Pauline was a complete idiot, played on all sides (both her own and by her enemies) for various political agendas. Her ill-advised sound bites (such as the “print more money” phrase) showed a wonderful ineptitude that the media, with it’s own political agenda, adored. But of course, I’m not telling you anything about Pauline that you don’t already know.
Let’s face it, the idea of apartheid in Australia is not new [4,5]. The word was bandied about when Pauline was rocking the political boat (though eventually only she fell and drowned). Australia is becoming a country that sees no problem in legislating different rules for different people. There is no sense that every person should be treated equally. Certainly the sheer fact there IS debate about banning booze to blacks and mandatory sentencing in the NT is evidence that a large amount of Australians see no problem with this. These are the same people who elected the current Government, and who I once thought as quite rational and sane.
In his draft preamble, Howard gave one nod to equality, in that Australian law should preserve and protect “Australians in an equal dignity”. This is a far cry from saying all Australians are equal. And it is becoming increasingly obvious that not all Australians are. And I am beginning to doubt if he believes that all “men” are created equal; certainly his support for Ruddock, his “sale” of immigrants to Nauru speaks volumes of this.
Whatever happened to the image of Australians as “lending a hand”? I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s not going to make a reappearance any time soon.
[1] cnn, [2] gov, (3)smh, [4] theage, [5] webusers
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PRESS RELEASE: Embargo – VOW and WEF: A Distinction
PRESS RELEASE EMBARGO not for release before 12.00 hours GMT on 22 January
2002
The World Economic Forum will hold its Annual Meeting from 31 January to 4 February 2002, in New York. We wish the meeting success. Especially after the tragedy of September the Eleventh, we wish peace, prosperity and progress to New York. The issues to be discussed are important and potentially wide-ranging. Those introducing each topic are distinguished. What then is Victory Over Want (VOW) proposing that WEF is not?
What is the World Economic Forum?
The WEF’s official website tells us that the Forum is “funded by the contributions of 1,000 of the world’s foremost corporations, the Forum acts in the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest to further economic growth and social progress”.
“The Forum serves its members and society by creating partnerships between and among business, political, intellectual and other leaders of society to define, discuss and advance key issues on the global agenda.”The Annual Meeting brings together “1,000 top business leaders, 250 political leaders, 250 foremost academic experts in every domain, including many Nobel Prize winners, and some 250 media leaders…to shape the global agenda. Together, they address the key economic, political and societal issues in a forward-looking action-oriented way.”
“Discussions are held at the highest level among participants who belong to the same community of top decision-makers, fostering a unique club atmosphere which is very conducive to a forward-looking approach in addressing key issues of global relevance or initiating new business contacts.”
“In the context of the Annual Meeting, a number of constituent groups meet privately, among them the 13 existing governors groups comprised of the top executives of the most important companies in key sectors of the world’s economy.The interaction among members of these different groups allows them to share perspectives and discuss issues of global relevance affecting their activities and their outlook.”
“The club atmosphere which prevails during the Annual Meeting creates the most propitious environment for experience-sharing among participants for business networking and for the acquisition of first-hand information on the latest trends in business, management, culture, economic and political domains. The Forum believes that progress can best be achieved when governments and business can freely and productively discuss challenges and work together to mold solutions.”
“The unique atmosphere of the Annual Meeting that the media captured in the expression “Esprit de Davos” contributes to the creation of opportunities for literally thousands of private discussions, in addition to the official sessions where Foundation Members, Constituents and other participants share information for pursuing business opportunities, progressing on international relations, scoring breakthroughs in major socio-political processes and forging global partnerships and alliances.”
Comment
In other words, the World Economic Forum, set up and managed during the thirty years in which the complexity of the world economy has intensified along with its instability, allows the great of business and government to meet in “a unique club atmosphere…to define, discuss and advance key issues on the global agenda.” There is no place at the Forum for the ordinary citizen. The man in the street is kept on the street. The New York Police Force is said to be mustering 40,000 men to keep dissenters and protesters away from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in which the Forum will “define, discuss and advance” their own proposals for the world in which the rest of our planet’s six billion people will live.
The WEF has the respectability of age and the blessing of the corporate establishment.The world leaders and experts who have prepared essays and received invitations to attend may be unlikely to offer embarrassing departures from mainstream economics orthodoxies – or from political and social orthodoxies either.
At the same time, some gentle hesitations are being expressed. Fan Gang, Director of the National Economic Research Institute of the China Reform Foundation, says in his essay that, “Ironically, more attention today seems to be paid to the fragility of developed countries and large multinationals. But think of the developing countries and small firms struggling in the shadow of multinationals. The real solution to todays fragility lies in the reduction of international disparities and fragility of poor nations. Reducing the poverty and fragility of the developing world must be pursued as a global public good, which is in short provision. Otherwise, the world will be more fragile and globalization will simply lead to more conflicts.”
We have yet to see how the discussions will go, but the expectation must be that, despite Fan Gang, the Forum will attempt to put as shiny a gloss as it can on a world attentive to the interests of the great international corporations and their compliant governments.
What is Victory Over Want (VOW)?
First, VOW says we have interwoven problems of threatening worldwide depression and long-term worldwide need.
Second, it says that governments and international agencies have not shown a capacity to act – or even to listen properly to voices of unhappiness and dissent.
Third, it says we need a fresh start, fresh thinking, a fresh determination to handle our problems with vigour and vision.
Fourth, VOW says we should take the democratic course and bring together the “sovereign people” of all continents, all races, all religious and other faiths and beliefs, secular and non-secular, to tackle in common the economic, social and, ultimately, political problems we all share.
Fifth, we have postulated that investment is what leads to higher productivity and production and gives us the income and wealth to abolish want from the face of the earth.
Sixth, at this time, private investment is faltering, with all three of the world’s most powerful economies in recession, so we must call on public investment to fight the economic downturn that threatens all of us, to head for long-term victory over want and, in so doing, to stimulate, reinvigorate and strengthen private investment everywhere.
Seventh, VOW is no pipe-dream, it is doable, it is necessary, we have the money, the skills, the management to do it – provided we have the will and the courage to act, to act together and to act now.
Eighth and last, we have proposed a VOW process – repeat, PROCESS – which will gather people together from everywhere in preparatory work and Commissions, to report to a World Conference for decisions leading to a Marshall-Plan-type assault on want, which will bring us a better, fairer, more peaceful world, in which we can enjoy the achievements man has already made and can look towards the future with confidence and in much more security.
This is a program for worldwide and fundamental peaceful change. We can do it. Let’s act to realise it, starting now, starting with us.
Elaboration
Let us elaborate on those points a little. VOW is receptive to all ideas, including those of the various estabishments, the big international corporations and the huge financial houses.
However, VOW is receptive also – and particularly – to the voices and the content of dissent.
VOW provides a forum in which new ideas can be set alongside the old, fresh ideas can be tested against those to which time has perhaps not been kind.
VOW provides a forum into which the dissenters in the streets can be brought into the councils of the policymakers around the world. At least, they must be heard and they must have a worthy stage from which to make themselves heard.
VOW seeks practical ways to achieve victory over want – ways to be put forward largely by the needy themselves, ways in which the needy can use their own energies and skills to lift themselves to higher levels of living, ways in which the rich can both help their poorer brethren and help themselves at the same time to greater prosperity and more security.
VOW seeks to mobilise and utilise human skills and energies. It abhors the current waste of these resources in unemployment and underemployment, in ignorance that education can banish, in poor health that basic medical services can remedy. It deplores homelessness and poor housing that a mobilisation of effort can correct. It wants to fill a glass – and more – with the clean water that more than a billion people have never before been able to drink.
This is not some wild, unattainable vision. It can be done. We all know it can be done. President Clinton confirmed to us just three weeks ago that the United States can easily carry its share of the “burden” – which is, he said, no more than the cost of the “cheap war” in Afghanistan. We don’t do it – we don’t do what we can easily do – only because we manage our affairs badly and/or we have less enlightened purposes to pursue. We let the “bottom line” obscure the view from the mountain-top.Victory over want can be won with benefit to all, within a plural, democratic, free-enterprise system.
It can give reinforcement to that system – and to its persistence and security – to an extent not available by any other means. Is there some wand we have discovered that we have only to wave to realise these marvels? No, there is no wand that we know of; but we do know what sound and sensible economic policies and real investment can achieve.
In recent years, public investment has fallen from grace, though much more in some countries than in others. Balancing budgets has become an obsession. The goal is always to have smaller government, less spending, lower taxes.
Fine so long as it lasts. But what happens when new schools aren’t built and old ones aren’t repaired and re-equipped? What happens when hospitals aren’t built and the trains don’t run – or run into each other? Who pays the unemployed – there are more than 4 million in Germany right now – when the investment hasn’t been made that would use their valuable energies and skills? What happens when the bottom line becomes an abyss into which our hopes for our economy, our society, our culture, our whole destiny might fall?
Investment over the centuries has endowed us with the great societies we have today. Investment enables construction and production today and necessary support to private investment at all times. If aggregate – public and private – investment is high, productivity will leap ahead, production will flourish, wants will be met. This public investment must be both national and international – not the self-serving financial quackery of some of our international financial institutions but solid public investment in infrastructure for transport and communications, education and health, the environment, housing, clean water, irrigation and hygienic waste-disposal. These are things that constitute the everyday needs and enhance the length and quality of life for all of us.
That is what VOW is all about.
We have already made VOW and its purposes known to the administrators of the World Economic Forum. We have not yet received a response. However, we would like to think that, after mature reflection in the Waldorf Astoria at the end of this month, what VOW is all about will turn out to be what WEF is all about too.
** *** **
The Overview of the Victory Over Want (VOW) can be found on the Internet at vow
For more information, please contact James Cumes* by e-mail vowfdr@hotmail.com. The postal address for correspondence is VOW, Veithgasse 6, 1030 Vienna, Austria.
* The initiator is Dr James Cumes, former Australian Ambassador and High Commissioner, former First Assistant Secretary of the Economic and International Organisations Divisions of the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Representative to the United Nations and UNIDO Vienna, Governor on the Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Representative at United Nations and many other international gatherings around the world. Author of several books on economics, government, history and behavioural psychology/philosophy.