Two of my recent letters to The Australian:
Published 26 Feb:
Letters, columns and news reports in The Australian have long conveyed serious concerns about threats to freedom of speech in Australia. Yet in that very journal Human Rights’ Commissioner Gillian Triggs denies that Australians have such fears (Opinion, 25/2). She also says that, by contrast, we – Australians at large – are “justly concerned that they and their families will be racially abused in a public place,” something which holds no fear for the vast majority of the population, who are neither abusers nor abused.
I fear that, like some in the government, Professor Triggs gives insufficient weight to the critical importance of freedom of speech relative to potential abuses of it, and to abuses of power which flourish in darkness.
Sent today in response to a Catholic Bishop drawing on the Pope:
Denis Hart knows nothing of economics (“Pope’s wish an ethical market,” 1/3). Competitive markets ensure that resources flow to their highest value use, so that, collectively, we make best use of scarce resources. Vendors succeed by offering a better deal than their competitors, and get repeat business through a good reputation. In tight labour markets, employers get the best from their staff by treating them well.
The impact of market economics and trade has seen a huge and unprecedented rise in global well-being over the last 60 years, which could have been achieved by no other means.
None of this is immoral, and the Pope’s call to “remoralise” and “civilise” the economy is ignorant.
The markets serve society well, but they are not social services. Governments exist in part to redress perceived shortcomings of markets. Unfortunately, they do so very poorly and at high cost, and should rely more on market mechanisms than regulation and intervention.
By lifting billions of people from a state of desperate struggle for survival, market economics has given them time and energy to pursue less survival-critical issues, including spiritual development.
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