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

I was in a circle of discussion which Dan was in, and I was talking about how terrible Malcolm Fraser was. At the end of it, Dan, to my great discredit, left that gathering crying. It taught me a couple of lessons. The first is that I did not feel good about the fact that, as result of a political discussion, I had put somebody in a state of tears and they had ended up leaving. It did not make me feel good at all. It has been a lesson that has stuck with me to this day, that politics ought to be discussed vigorously, but it ought never to be a cause of creating a personal difference between two people. I apologised to Dan at the time—I hope I did. I certainly do now. Of course, the great exponent of that philosophy was Malcolm Fraser himself.

The relationship that Malcolm Fraser subsequently had with Gough Whitlam is the greatest example in our history of how personal friendships can traverse whatever political differences we have in this place. It is an enormous credit to both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam that they were able to have that relationship. It has to stand as an example for all of us in this place at this point that, in the place of personal friendships and in the place of collegiality across the aisle, so many good things can be achieved and so many good things can be done. This is not to belittle the need to argue our points of view as vigorously as we can and to pursue politics in that way, but it is to say that there is an important space that can be created in which great things can occur if we can ensure that the relationships and the personal rapport that come from that are able to be maintained. The friendship between Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser was not that important, but together they did really significant things post their political lives.

The second point that came out of that moment with Dan was to discover that Malcolm Fraser—somebody who I had seen on the TV and in newspapers—was actually a real person. He was Dan's uncle, not a distant uncle but an uncle whom he loved and who loved him such that, when a brat like me was saying what I was saying, it really hurt him. It is a reminder, again, that everyone in public life is a real person. Also, the most significant thing that any of us do in this place is never as significant as the role that we play in our lives as the loved ones of those who love us. I remember being at David's 21st birthday, out in the Western District, and Malcolm Fraser was there. I was very keen to see a former Prime Minister, as he was at that point, so a friend of mine and I sidled up to him in the ice-cream queue and I think I met the shyness of Malcolm Fraser at that moment as we tried to get a conversation going in relation to footy.

Later, on the day of the national apology in precisely this space, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Malcolm and Tamie Fraser, and indicated my friendship with both Dan and David Beggs. It was a moment of animation in Malcolm Fraser's eyes as I spoke to him about his nephews. That obviously had nothing to do with me; it had everything to do with what those two people meant to Malcolm Fraser. I think it is a really poignant lesson that he as the Prime Minister of Australia, achieving the highest office in this land, could still see how important it was that family came first.

I was reminded, and want to remind people today, of an interview that he conducted in the lead-up to the 1983 election. I think the question was asked of him about what he had learnt and what was important to him as the Prime Minister of Australia. The very first comment he made was about the importance of family and how, no matter what the meeting was and no matter how busy he was, whenever there was a call made to him from one of his children, that is what came first. That was the priority in his life as Prime Minister and that was the call that he answered immediately. That is a mantra which I have tried to maintain, probably not as well as he did, in my life in this place as well.

Whilst there are enormous public policy legacies that are rightly celebrated in the speeches that are being made here in this condolence debate, it is really those personal reflections of Malcolm Fraser's life which have had the biggest impact on me as a person and also as a parliamentarian. My thoughts right now are very much with Dan Ritchie, David Beggs and the extended family of Malcolm Fraser, as they are with his immediate family: his wife Tamie and his children Mark, Angela, Hugh and Phoebe. They are the family of a remarkable Australian and my thoughts are very much with them at this time.

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