John Stone

John Stone is a former Senator for the National Party from Queensland. Prior to this Stone was a Treasury official from 1954, serving as head of Treasury 1979–84. Stone was also Australia’s executive director in the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank in Washington.

Stone has worked as a researcher at right-wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. He was a founder, together with Peter Costello of the right-wing HR Nicholls Society, and also a founder of the conservative Samuel Griffith Society.

He is a prominent climate change skeptic. In November 2006 he wrote that global warming is a "problem that exists chiefly in the fevered minds of its UN and Green proponents"

"Joh For PM"
In the late 1980s Stone was a supporter of the disastrous "Joh for PM" campaign, in which some Australian conservatives attempted to make Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen Australia's Prime Minister, but failed badly. 

Accusations of Racism
Stone has been accused of being a racist by Professor Robert Manne, of La Trobe University's Politics Department. Manne has written that "The former Treasury secretary John Stone had long been an opponent of Asian immigration. Now the focus of his concern shifted to Muslims instead. According to Stone, Australia was, from the cultural point of view, a "Judeo-Christian" country. Because of its supposed incompatibility with such a culture, he argued that all Muslim immigration must end.

"Stone was aware, of course, that on account of his suggestion he would be accused of racism. Such accusations were, he claimed, both mischievous and wrong. He had no interest in the colour of a potential migrant's skin. The only issue which concerned him was "culture" and not "race". In light of the academic definition of new racism, Stone and his supporters unwittingly supplied an almost perfect textbook case." 

Sourcewatch Resources

 * Think Tanks/Australia

External Resources

 * John Stone, The Origins and Influence of the HR Nicholls Society, 2006.
 * John Stone, The Muslim Problem and What to Do about It, Quadrant Magazine, September 2006 - Volume L Number 9.