Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

Today is an occasion of sadness, but it is also an occasion of honour to be able to speak on the condolence motion to celebrate the life of the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser. As I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the last Labor government, having spent at the end of that time some considerable attention on Africa, it would be appropriate for me to focus on Malcolm Fraser's enormous contribution to the cause of ending apartheid in South Africa and indeed the cause of the pursuit of human rights in Southern Africa. His contribution to that honours our country as a whole.

As I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs in the last Labor government, spending a considerable amount on PNG, again it would be remiss of me not to mention the significant contribution that Malcolm Fraser made to the beginnings of the independent state of Papua New Guinea, supporting PNG, as he did, in the early days of that sovereign state after independence, which occurred in September 1975, just a month or two before Malcolm Fraser became the Prime Minister of Australia. Indeed, his efforts to ensure that there was significant support for that country in its early days were absolutely fundamental to the growth and survival of PNG. It led in 2011 to Malcolm Fraser being awarded the Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu, which gives him the entitlement to be called Chief Malcolm Fraser. I was the parliamentary secretary at that time. PNG, I have often felt, ought to be seen as utterly central to Australian foreign policy. I think that is a point which needs to be emphasised as often as possible, but Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister saw the centrality of our relationship with PNG in our world view as a lesson for every practitioner of foreign affairs about the significance of that bilateral relationship.

And now, as I am the shadow minister for immigration, it would also be remiss of me not to mention the enormous contribution that Malcolm Fraser made in this area, ushering as he did the wave of Vietnamese and Indochinese immigration in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to our country, which has completely changed the face of modern Australia and is an enormous contribution to who we are as a society today. We have heard in other contributions the fact that Malcolm Fraser was the first person in this place to use the word 'multiculturalism' as a descriptor for Australia. John Menadue, who has had an esteemed career as a public servant in Canberra and was the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs during much of the time that Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, regards that as the most exciting opportunity that he had in his career of public service to Australia and absolutely believes that it has profoundly changed who we are as a nation. It is appropriate also to mention in that context Mick Young, who was the shadow minister for immigration at the time, who very much offered bipartisan support on the part of the Labor opposition.

But really the contribution that I want to make this evening is more of a personal reflection in respect of Malcolm Fraser. I did not know Malcolm Fraser, but as a child of Victoria's south-west I certainly knew members of Malcolm Fraser's extended family and saw the personal side, if I can put it that way, of Malcolm Fraser. I attended school with two—more, actually, but I had two friends particularly who were Malcolm Fraser's nephews, Dan Ritchie and David Beggs. Phoebe Fraser was also at school with me. She was a little bit older than me, and I did not know Phoebe, but Dan and David were good friends of mine while I was at school.

I remember very clearly when I was probably about 12 years old, being more precocious than I should—clearly, I am sure, speaking from a place of ignorance—railing against the then Fraser government. I was unreasonably politicised at the age of 12, which probably demonstrates the sad specimen of a human being that I am—that that is what I was thinking about at that age—

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