The current chancellor of the University of Queensland, Peter Varghese, former head of the Office of National Assessments and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, says that: “AUKUS is too momentous a decision to be left to the ‘echo chamber’ of classified discussions.” Yet the University Chancellor did not sign the letter by academics opposing the AUKUS agreement. Peter Varghese was appointed to Office of National Assessments by Prime Minister John Howard after serving as his chief advisor.
In 2009, Prime Minister Rudd sent Peter Varghese on a mission after racist attacks on Indian students in Australia. Varghese’s job was to repair damage done by these attacks in the eyes of the Indian government. To make matters worse Victorian police sent around inflammatory emails about tasing Indian students encouraging them to leave the country. Rudd’s motive was that Indian students are a sacred cash cow to Australian Universities. Rudd did not wish to damage Australia’s International competitiveness in the Education industry especially in India and China.
I remember Peter Varghese’s brother Frank Varghese giving one of the best speeches I had heard against apartheid. Frank spoke out against the American war in Vietnam in the Great Court of the University of Queensland during the 1970s moratorium campaign. We marched to Brisbane city on May 8, 1970. At the same time there was a huge march in Melbourne. The extraparliamentary opposition brought about change to foreign policy when both McMahon and Whitlam governments withdrew troops from Vietnam. Whitlam began active engagement with China. He ended conscription as a direct result of those marches and freed the people imprisoned for conscientious objection to the war in Indo-China.
In 1973, the Attorney General, Lionel Murphy, fearful that the spooks would not carry out Labor’s modest reforms, raided ASIO headquarters. Murphy’s press secretary, George Negus said : “Lionel (Murphy) had asked for the files of the six most dangerous or subversive people in Australia“. When the files arrived, Murphy found they were of several Communist Party (CPA) unionists and people such as CPA leader and peace movement activist Mavis Robertson. According to Negus, when Murphy told Whitlam, they both laughed.
In 1970, as part of opposition to the American war in Vietnam, university radicals called for a teach-in and general strike at the university in preparation for the moratorium of May 8. A People’s Park was set up in the University Great Court.
Another brother of Peter Varghese, Jim, also opposed the war as part of the Revitalisation of Christianity (ROC) movement on the campus at the time. Frank, Jim and another member of ROC, David Franken, had all attended the conservative Christian brothers school Saint Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace. David Franken and Jim Varghese, returned their cadet trophies to their old school as an expression of their pacifist principles. In April of the following year, Franken, David Martin and Bill Cochrane appeared in Court for refusing to register for ‘the draft’.
Their old University now proudly houses corporations with direct ties to the military industrial complex. For example, the former CEO of Dow chemicals, the manufacturer of napalm and agent orange that killed so many people in Vietnam, paid for his name to be put on a building at the University now led by Peter Varghese. What an embarrassment for the Chancellor. To make things worse the Queensland government superannuation fund, QSuper, owns shares in companies involved in arms manufacture and nuclear weapons. The government sponsors arms dealer conventions and the making of troop carriers and is vying for the AUKUS nuclear submarine base to be located in Brisbane.
As Chancellor, Peter Varghese and his fellow senators at UQ, probably uncomfortable with the insanity of taking up arms against our major trading partner, did not sign the letter opposing AUKUS. This policy takes Australia back to the ‘forward defence policy‘ of the American war in Vietnam, an era that radicalised Peter Varghese’s brothers and their contemporaries.
The letter has 111 signatories questioning AUKUS and Australia’s aggressive foreign policy states:
We the undersigned are scholars of the humanities and social sciences and other disciplines with expertise in the following issues. We write this open letter to express our concerns regarding the Australia, United Kingdom, United States (AUKUS) trilateral security agreement. Specifically, our concerns relate to pillar one of the agreement, the joint development with the US and the UK of a nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) capability for Australia.
The academics who have signed the letter are:
Signatories (as of 23 May 2023):
Dr Vince Scappatura, Sessional Academic, Macquarie University
Adjunct Professor, Mark Beeson, University of Technology, Sydney
Adjunct Professor, Albert Palazzo, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Dr Lloyd Cox, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University
Honorary Professor, Richard Tanter, The University of Melbourne
Dr Jonathan Symons, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University
Professor Dennis Altman AM, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University
Professor John Quiggin, Laureate Fellow, University of Queensland
Emeritus Professor, James Cotton, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Professor Henry Reynolds, University of Tasmania
Margaret Reynolds AC, Former Visiting Professor, University of Queensland
Dr Sian Troath, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Canterbury
Dr Scott Burchill, Honorary Fellow, Deakin University
Dr Tania Miletic, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Dr Binoy Kampmark, Senior Lecturer, RMIT University
Dr Allan Patience, Honorary Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Professor Marilyn Lake, The University of Melbourne
Dr Michael McKinley, Emeritus Faculty, The Australian National University
Dr Tom Chodor, Lecturer, Monash University
Honorary Professor Peter Stanley, FAHA, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Associate Professor David Lee, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Allan Behm, Director, International and Security Affairs Program, The Australia Institute
Professor Anthony Burke, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Professor David S G Goodman, The University of Sydney
Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, Griffith University
Dr Danny Cooper, Sessional Lecturer, The University of Sydney
Adjunct Professor Richard Broinowski AO, Universities of Canberra and Sydney; Former Australian Ambassador
Dr Alison Broinowski AM, FAHA, FAIIA, President, Australians for War Powers Reform
Dr Douglas Newton, Independent Scholar
Dr Julie Kimber, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology
Emeritus Professor, Timothy Rowse, Western Sydney University
Dr Marty Branagan, Peace Studies, University of New England
Dr Jumana Bayeh, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University
Professor John Langmore AM, The University of Melbourne
Adjunct Professor Bob Boughton, University of New England, Armidale
Dr Daryl Le Cornu, Western Sydney University
Dr Tilman Ruff AO, Hon Principal Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Professor Dianne Otto, The University of Melbourne
Distinguished Honorary Professor, Carroll Pursell, FAAAS, The Australian National University
Dr Luke Fletcher, Visiting Fellow, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Emeritus Professor Louise Edwards, FAHA, FASSA, FHKAH, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Dr Murray Noonan, Casual Academic, Deakin University
Professor Derek McDougall, Professorial Fellow, The University of Melbourne
Professor Robyn Eckersley FASSA, The University of Melbourne
Honorary Associate Professor, Greg Fry, The Australian National University
Dr Umut Ozguc, Lecturer, Macquarie University
Associate Professor Jake Lynch, The University of Sydney
Honorary Professor Peter Hayes, The University of Sydney, Director, Nautilus Institute
Professor Angela Woollacott, The Australian National University
Professor Sarah Joseph, Griffith University
Emeritus Professor Gavan McCormack, FAHA, The Australian National University
Adjunct Professor Scott Poynting, Queensland University of Technology
Professor John Keane, The University of Sydney
Emeritus Professor Michael Hamel-Green, Victoria University
Associate Professor David Hundt, Deakin University
Dr Mike Donaldson, University of Wollongong, retired
Dr Monique Cormier, Senior Lecturer, Monash University
Dr Charles Hawksley, University of Wollongong
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees AM, The University of Sydney
Associate Professor Nick Apoifis, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Dr Greg Lockhart, Historian and Writer
Dr Benjamin Zala, Fellow, The Australian National University
Conjoint Professor Aurelia George Mulgan, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Honorary Professor Geoffrey Hawker, Macquarie University
Professor Susan Park, The University of Sydney
Professor Mobo Gao, University of Adelaide
Associate Professor Peter Christoff, The University of Melbourne
Professor Kanishka Jayasuriya, Murdoch University, Western Australia
Professor George Lawson, The Australian National University
Dr Peter Van Ness, Visiting Fellow, The Australian National University
Dr Anna Hood, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland
Professor Christian Reus-Smit, University of Queensland
Professor Susan Harris Rimmer, Griffith University
Professor Wanning Sun, University of Technology Sydney
Professor Yingjie Guo, The University of Sydney
Professor Jane Golley, The Australian National University
Professor Jocelyn Chey, Visiting Professor, The University of Sydney
Associate Professor Matt McDonald, University of Queensland
Emeritus Professor Christopher Cook, University of Wollongong
Emeritus Professor Colin Mackerras, Griffith University
Distinguished Professor Ien Ang, FAHA, Western Sydney University
Professor David Lowe, Deakin University
Honorary Professor, Melanie Oppenheimer FASSA, The Australian National University
Dr Emma Shortis, Lecturer, RMIT University
Associate Professor Jamie Reilly, The University of Sydney
Dr Valentina Baú, Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University
Dr Declan Kuch, Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University
Dr Federica Caso, Lecturer, La Trobe University
Dr Ben Wellings, Senior Lecturer, Monash University
Dr Kelly Gerard, Senior Lecturer, University of Western Australia
Dr Priya Chacko, Senior Lecturer, University of Adelaide
Associate Professor Jingdong Yuan, The University of Sydney
Dr Melissa Johnston, Lecturer, The University of Queensland
Associate Professor Chengxin Pan, University of Macau; Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney
Professor Michael Dutton, FASSA, University of London
Professor Joy Damousi, The University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Marianne Hanson, University of Queensland
Honorary Professor Garry Rodan, The University of Queensland
Dr Evan Jones, Honorary Associate, The University of Sydney
Dr Judy Hemming, Emeritus Faculty, The Australian National University
Emeritus Professor Ian Dance, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Emeritus Professor David Holm, National Cheng-Chi University, Taipei; Former Professor, The University of Melbourne
Professor Baogang He, Deakin University
Emeritus Professor Tony Bennett, Western Sydney University
Associate Professor Nichole Georgeou, Western Sydney University
Dr Erik Paul, School of Political and Social Sciences, The University of Sydney
Dr Qian Gong, Senior Lecturer, Curtin University
David Morris, Senior Research Fellow, Beijing Foreign Studies University
Professor Justin O’Connor, University of South Australia
Dr Monika Barthwal-Datta, Senior Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Sydney
Thanks to Just Peace Qld for bringing this letter to our attention.
Ian Curr
28 May 2023
References
https://johnmenadue.com/an-open-letter-to-the-australian-government-from-concerned-scholars-regarding-the-aukus-agreement/
‘Revitalization of Christianity’ in Fryer library, University of Queensland.
A Historical Portrait of the New Student Left at the University of Queensland, 1966 – 1972 by Mark Young.
Photos by Grahame Garner, See Fryer Library collection at University of Queensland.