AUSTRALIA


parliamentarian, Prime Minister and statesman. We farewell a person of hidden depths and many parts, a man often misunderstood. For some, Malcolm Fraser was a hero who became a villain. For others, he was a villain who became a hero. But neither of these simple sketches are fair, and, in time, history’s judgement will be kinder than either.” Mr Shorten noted Mr Fraser’s commitment to human rights commenting that “as Prime Minister, he led Australia’s independent condemnation of the evil of apartheid. He took a principled stand, declaring that South Africa’s regime of racial prejudice was ‘repugnant to the whole human race’. And he matched his words with deeds, visiting Mandela in prison, imposing international sanctions and, perhaps most famously in our sport-loving nation, refusing to allow the Springboks’ plane to stop here on its way to New Zealand. Later, Fraser delighted in telling the anecdote of Mandela’s first question to him at their meeting: ‘Mr Fraser, can you tell me, is Don Bradman still alive?’ And so, when Mandela became President, Fraser took him a bat inscribed by the Don: ‘To Nelson Mandela, in recognition of a great unfinished innings.’ ” The Leader of the Australian


Greens, Senator Christine Milne commented that Mr Fraser embraced everyone, “regardless of colour or creed, and we will always remember that, as Prime Minister, it was his Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1976 that recognised that Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory should have control over their own land.”


Senator Milne noted that “right up until his death, you could say that he was a great advocate for multicultural Australia and for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. That, of course, stemmed from his time in office, where, as we have heard, he did set up the Family Court, the ombudsman,


The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue Two | 135


the first FOI laws, the Australian Federal Police and also the Human Rights Commission. Right up until his death, he was still defending the Human Rights Commission and its head, Gillian Triggs, saying, ‘Enough is enough,’ on the attack on the Human Rights Commission. In terms of the media, he set up SBS, and later on, in his post-parliamentary career, he was a leader in the campaign against the concentration of media ownership.” Senator Glenn Lazarus commented that “not long after I started in this place, I walked into my office and I was told that a Mr Malcolm Fraser wanted me to ring him. When I came to my senses, I thought: why would the great man Malcolm Fraser be ringing me? I did ring him, and he wanted to talk to me to share


his passion for human rights and the need for Australia to embrace people in need. He was concerned by the way Australia was treating asylum seekers and how this was impacting Australia’s reputation across the world. It was an absolute honour to receive a call from Mr Fraser, and I told him so.” Senator Nick Xenophon


noted that “another former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, a junior MP during the Dismissal, said this of Mr Fraser’s death: it ‘underwrites a great loss to Australia’. While, Mr Keating reflected, ‘The great pity for him of the budget crisis of 1975 was that it de-legitimised his government, at its inception, and with it, much of the value he otherwise brought to public life,’ Mr Keating also praised Mr Fraser for his significant


and lasting contributions: his achievements for land rights, multiculturalism, refugees and, in Paul Keating’s words, ‘many other clear-sighted reforms’. His passion and commitment against racism, against apartheid in South Africa, his leadership role for Nelson Mandela’s freedom were unwavering, although I understand how his joy at Rhodesia becoming a democratic Zimbabwe had turned to despair with the increasingly despotic and ruthless Mugabe regime.”


Rt. Hon. John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, (1930 – 2015) 22nd


Prime Minister of


Australia and the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1975 to 1983.


Image courtesy of AUSPIC


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