The Australian National University’s ‘ethical’ dumping of $16 million in Australian resource stocks last October has progressed from ‘stupid’ (as described at the time by Prime Minister Tony Abbott) to both farcical and damaging. The ANU’s Chancellor (accident-prone former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans) has had to write a letter of apology expressing deep regret at ‘any embarrassment suffered by Santos over the decision to divest interests in the gas producer’ and giving an assurance that ‘We are aware of the many positive contributions that your company, and some others from which we are divesting, have made to Australian society’.