Ros Kelly warning ‘did not happen’

John Stone disputes claim in Morgan book

I refer to Richard Gluyas’s Business Review article (“How a banker’s life lessons were forged”, 2-3/3) regarding David Morgan’s biography. In the article Morgan is quoted from the book as saying: “Over drinks one Friday night in Canberra, before (Morgan) married (Ros) Kelly in 1983, the arch-conservative then-Treasury secretary John Stone scowled at Morgan: ‘If you marry that woman, you will never be secretary to the Treasury’.” That is untrue. I would never have said such a thing about Ros Kelly, nor would I have thought of Morgan (then a relatively junior officer) as a possible future secretary to the Treasury. My subsequent invitation (which I accepted) to attend their wedding renders the allegation even more bizarre.

I have known Morgan for 47 years. His intellectual abilities have never been in doubt. It was for an entirely different reason, when he asked some time ago that the author of his then planned biography might speak to me, that I declined.

John Stone, Lane Cove, NSW

In his commentary on David Morgan’s book on his own life, Richard Gluyas writes that “after an early career at the International Monetary Fund”, Morgan switched over to Treasury where he formed a tight bond with fellow thinkers who allegedly “marginalised” Treasury secretary John Stone, who “then exited Treasury”.

I have not read this book but am puzzled by this assertion. As a deputysecretary Treasury at the time Stone resigned in 1984, I was in close contact with him at that time and I do not recall him attributing his resignation to any pressure from within Treasury. To the contrary.

Regarding the exchange rate float in 1983, Paul Keating’s concerns later of the danger of us becoming a banana republic suggest Stone correctly advised implementing other regulatory and policy changes with the float.

Des Moore, South Yarra, Vic

Moral authority

Janet Albrechtsen’s over-the-top criticism (“Victimhood: it’s an aspiration”, 2-3/3) of my political analysis of the implications of the Pell decision and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are a sign of what is wrong with some of the political discourse in Australia today. Instead of simply saying she disagrees with my analysis, Albrechtsen resorts to mud slinging.

It is self-evident that the moral and political authority of the Catholic Church is diminished by what has happened. Those prosecuting the arguments espoused by George Pell and the Catholic Church will, in my estimation, face a tougher task in the future.

Pell may well be acquitted at appeal, but as Claire Harvey in The Sunday Telegraph said this week, “he presided over an organisation that both passively and actively abused and betrayed children” and “displayed frankly sickening arrogance when asked to account for his inaction and that of his organisation”.

The long-term political implications of the fall of the world’s third highest ranking Catholic and one of the intellectual leaders of Australia’s hard-Right, are yet to be properly understood.

Ben Oquist, executive director, The Australia Institute

In his article “Pell's ordeal reinforces the case for judge-only trials” (2-3/3), Gerard Henderson suggests I have “expressed doubts about the Pell conviction”. That’s not accurate; I am not one of the many seeking to re-litigate a trial I didn’t attend. What I did say, in Crikey, was that a court verdict should not be taken as establishing, unquestionably, the truth or otherwise of the events being judged. George Pell was convicted by a process that convicts many people each day. That verdict might be overturned on appeal. Neither judgment will tell us, absolutely, what did or didn’t happen in the backrooms of St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

Guy Rundle, Melbourne, Vic