I received an ARC grant of A$ 15,000 in 1992 for work on Harrod.
Should I ask Dr. Brett if he wants me to give it back, as my work is not 
considered by him to be in the field of Economics.
Perhaps my present work on the History of Modern Macro is also not 
Economics. Perhaps Brett should inform Lucas, Kydland, Prescott and others 
with whom I am working that I am a "hagiographer". I have been called that 
before, but by an economist whom I greatly respected at the time and even 
more since (Frank Hahn, as cited in my 1987 book)...
But seriously speaking, I am not surprised at the response of the ABS. 
Classification  is more important than people...
I suggested off-line to my friends in "Oz" that they might have no recourse 
but to take legal action against the Australian Statistician, ABS and Brett 
personally....
I still think that rallying big guns, as many Nobel Laureates as possible, 
e.g. North and Fogel, Samuelson and Solow, and others, the AEA Executive, 
and having them write the PM of Australia, with a cc to Brian Pink 
(Audtralian Statistician), may help the situation. After all, while the 
situations are in no way similar, and no one can condone what occurred in 
hindsight, a "brief letter" by an elderly eccentric Professor to FDR did 
change world history. Had he written the Undersecretary or even the 
Secretary of War, and waited for a reply from a bureaucrat, one can only 
speculate as to the outcome.....

Warren Young