Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to participate in this condolence motion for the Rt. Hon. Malcolm Fraser. He was one of the old regime. We do not have them anymore, thank goodness—not the old regime, but the old practice. I come at this discussion around Mr Fraser's life from the perspective of someone who first met him in 1971 or 1972, I cannot be precise, when I was driving cabs here in Canberra. I picked him up one day at the back of Parliament House and dropped him off somewhere. I am not sure who he was with or why he was going there or any of that sort of stuff, but that was my first interaction with him. Then, of course, I was to observe his role in the nefarious dismissal and he became a bete noire for people like me and those of the left and those in the progressive side of politics for all of his then political life.

But it is not about that that I want to talk. I really want to talk about his life after politics and reflect principally on his role with Care Australia. I did have some interaction with him in later years, most recently at the 100th birthday celebration for Simon Crean's mum, Mrs Crean, in their home in Melbourne. He and Mrs Fraser were present and it was very clear that not only were they well received and well respected by those who were there, but they were treated with the sort of respect you would expect for someone who has led quite a significant public life and done a great deal for this country.

Prior to that I was involved with him as he was a commissioner, along with Bob Hawke, the National President of the RSL, Rear Admiral Ken Doolan (Retired), Peacekeeper Major Matina Jewell (Retired), veterans advocate Kylie Russell and cartoonist and journalist Warren Brown on the National Commission on the Commemoration of the Anzac Centenary. They were appointed by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on 25 April 2010, and reported in 2011. Six hundred submissions were received, along with 1,500 suggestions from Australia and overseas, on how we might best commemorate the Anzac Centenary. So they were very much part of the architecture that led us to the development of the processes and commemorative events around the Anzac Centenary. I want to thank all of those people but most particularly acknowledge the roles of former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Malcolm Fraser. One of the meetings we had that I was present at was at the war cabinet room at Victoria Barracks, in Melbourne. There was a very interesting interaction between all of the members of the committee, and I have to say that it was a great opportunity for me to see first-hand the way in which Mr Fraser worked.

I do not want to dwell on whatever sins I might have seen committed during 1975, and subsequently while Mr Fraser was Prime Minister and a member of parliament. I want to talk about his post-parliamentary career, and most importantly his single-minded dedication to issues to do with human rights. We have heard others talk about his role in advancing the arguments against apartheid, and the very strong actions he took to ensure that the Australian government took when he was Prime Minister, which sent a very strong message to South Africa about the unacceptable nature of the apartheid regime. We know that. It was a very strong and personal commitment of Mr Fraser's.

He also had a belief, which I think was lifelong, that Australia should play an active role on the international stage on human rights issues. That may have stemmed from his very progressive liberal views about the rights of individuals being protected, and protected in this context in terms of their human rights. It is evidenced not only by his own actions but also by the criticisms and admonitions he received from others on human rights issues. It was evidenced by the way in which they behaved or misbehaved. But I do not think it is properly understood in this place that he played a significant role in issues to do with human rights and international aid, in the period post-1987, when he became involved with CARE Australia. He was chair of CARE Australia from 1987 until 2002, which is twice as long as the period for which he was Prime Minister. Also, he was president of CARE International between 1990 and 1995. Mr Fraser committed himself wholeheartedly to this role. I had some engagement with him whilst he was in that role, principally because a former workmate of mine, Brian Doolan—a person who worked with me while I was a member of parliament and a member of the executive in the Hawke government—who became an employee of CARE Australia and worked very closely with Mr Fraser over a number of years. He made a very strong impression upon Brian, and subsequently Brian transmitted that impression to me. It was very clear that he earned the respect, because Brian was a person of the Left. He was not someone who came from the conservative side of politics. He and Mr Fraser got on extremely well. Mr Fraser used his considerable experience, presence and skill to advance CARE's work. He was fearless in advocating for the rights and welfare of CARE employees. It was in that context that his presence, his energy and his commitment was evidence to his work for the release, in 1999, of Steve Pratt and Peter Wallace, and, later, Branko Jelen, who were employees of CARE Australia when imprisoned by the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia. Mr Fraser was not a hands-off person in this context. He made five visits to Belgrade over the period and was very active in progressing the issues to do with the release. He very much had hands-on participation in the negotiations with the Milosevic regime. He was involved in the politics of the United Nations and its relationship to Yugoslavia, and at one point in the discussions acted as a representative in part for the Australian government.

It needs to be understood here that this was a man who had spent his time as Prime Minister and had now decided to devote his time to human rights issues and advancing the interests of others through his role in CARE Australia. He needs to be congratulated. We need to acknowledge his role and, in his passing, acknowledge that that role made a significant contribution to the role that CARE Australia plays across the world stage. He obviously became very attuned to the politics of international aid, of international aid organisations, of the role of the Department of Foreign Affairs here in Australia, of Australia's role in the world of human rights and international aid, and of the role the United Nations played.

I rang Brian the other day. He now happens to be the CEO of the Fred Hollows Foundation, and he is currently in Rwanda. I spoke to him by phone and asked, 'What should I be saying about Mr Fraser?' He gave me some insights about his relationship with him, which was a very strong relationship, but he said that one of the things I needed to refer to most strongly—and this was emphasised to me as well by Simon Crean—was the role that Mrs Fraser played and how close she was to Mr Fraser in supporting him in his work both in Australia and internationally.

Brian regaled this story from during the Yugoslav crisis. They were at the London high commission and Mr Fraser was away in the corner on the phone having a yarn, with his hand cupped over the mouthpiece, to Mrs Fraser. He yelled out across the room, 'Tamie wants to know how you are, Brian?' And Brian said, 'I'm okay, but I haven't eaten for 12 hours.' That was relayed to Mrs Fraser. It was not much later that Mrs Fraser emerged with some refreshments for Brian. She was that sort of person, and I think we need to acknowledge in Mr Fraser's passing the magnificent contribution she has made to Australian public life and to her reputation in terms of her role as a partner, wife, mother to Mr Fraser's children and grandmother to the grandchildren. But most importantly there was the support she provided for Mr Fraser.

I just want to refer to Malcolm Fraser: the political memoirs, which I commend to those who have not had the opportunity to read it. I have not read all of it myself, but chapter 21 deals with his time with CARE Australia and I have to say that it is worth a read. At the end of it, given the time and effort that he put into this exercise in working for CARE Australia and trying to work for the interests of others across the world who were far less fortunate than ourselves, it says on page 711:

'There is no doubt', Fraser says, 'that helping to found it was one of the very best things that I have done.' Fraser believes the great strength of CARE is that it is non-political and non-religious, giving help where it is needed, as and when it can. And what about the politics, the disappointments and the betrayals? He shrugs. 'Well, that's people. We are imperfect creatures.'

And we are imperfect creatures. I am sure that Mr Fraser, in acknowledging that we are imperfect creatures recognised his own imperfections.

But one of the things that he was not was stale. I know that there are those opposite who would not be too enamoured with his behaviour of latter years in walking away from the Liberal Party. But do not worry: he was on the path again. I thought I might have a copy of this today, but I have not been able to procure it. But he had been actively canvassing setting up another political party prior to his death. As recently as only a few weeks ago he had communications with some very close friends of mine who were friends of his, about the need to set up another political party in this country which might reflect the best, I suspect, of what he would have thought of as the liberal movement, as well as what came out of Labor. The people he was speaking to were otherwise Labor supporters. Indeed, they were members of the Labor Party.

This was very recent. This was not something which was old; it was not something which he did 15 years ago. This was something he was doing prior to his death. He was in his 80s. There was this active man being involved—as he had been for a long time—in prosecuting issues to do with human rights. His attitude towards people wanting to come to this country—refugees and refugee settlement—is well known. It is something which he needs to be acknowledged for, that he did not have the attitudes that were reflected in the conservative side of politics on those issues. He did not have those attitudes.

I remember when the Vietnamese came here in the seventies. Those who say that there were no boat people need to think again, because Vietnamese boat people arrived in Darwin Harbour and effectively presented themselves to the police—they landed. But he had a great role in making sure that we dealt with that huge crisis sensitively, appropriately and securely. Now we have a thriving population of Vietnamese people in this country and their families and descendants, and we can be happy that Mr Fraser had a very great role in developing the multicultural ethic that is now at the centre of what we do in this country. But, as I said, his views are not the ones which are currently reflected on the conservative side of politics.

I do want to finish by saying—as I said at the beginning of my contribution—that he was a bete noir for me during that period while he was in government, at the time of the dismissal. But subsequently, he certainly redeemed himself in my eyes because of his public role in advocating for human rights, for his role in the international community, in giving agency for change and in addressing the needs of those most in need. I think that however he is judged into the future, that his life's work is an extremely significant body of work. But to me, the most important things that he has done related to the period after he was prime minister.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to speak on the condolence motion for Malcolm Fraser—a former prime minister, a humanitarian and a person who was engaged in the absolute central issues of the last half century in Australia, but also a constituent of the electorate of Flinders—somebody I knew and would regard as a friend—and a great family man. I have had the honour and the pleasure of knowing Tamie and Malcolm Fraser. Also, curiously, his granddaughter Storm is the teacher for my five-year-old son. Malcolm's engagement with the electorate of Flinders and the people of Flinders not just as a former Prime Minister of this country but also as a constituent, as a resident and as the senior of a truly great family is very deep.

Against that background, let me begin by acknowledging his life and his family—Tamie Fraser; his four children, including Phoebe, whom I have met along the way; and his grandchildren, including Storm—and acknowledging their loss. Of course, his network of friends was dramatically wider, as somebody in such a prominent and unique role in Australia's life gathers and accumulates quite a network of friends over the course of 84 years. My father also knew Malcolm Fraser very well. They were at school together—I think they were a couple of years apart—and they had a longstanding relationship. Indeed, through the work of the constitutional conventions in the 1970s, they worked together on constructive issues in relation to multicultural affairs and in relation to making the Federation a more effective unit.

There are three things which most distinguished Malcolm Fraser: his courage, his conviction and his compassion. His courage was undoubted. At a time of immense instability and uncertainty in Australia in the 1970s he stepped forward, and there can be no doubt as to the degree of controversy and the strength of feelings that were present in the nation. The night after the Australia Day riot of 2012—where then Prime Minister Gillard was swept away by the Australian Federal Police and lost her shoe in the process and this was a major public issue—I happened to be at a very small dinner with Malcolm and Tamie Fraser and a few other people. Mr Fraser remarked that it had not really been that large a fracas or incident and was perhaps surprised at the way in which the threat had been perceived to the then Prime Minister. This was no reflection on the Prime Minister but more to the fact that, in his view, the media and some security forces had perhaps overreacted—not that I necessarily share that view. Tamie Fraser replied, 'That wasn't a riot. In our day, we saw real riots and they really wanted to kill Malcom.' There was that sense of good humour about the past but also that recognition that, whatever tensions we feel in domestic Australian politics today, they do tend to pale against the enormity of events and the extraordinary pressures of 1975 and the years that followed.

Without trying to re-litigate history, I think the best way to understand that history is to return to the judgement of the people at the time. In 1975, following the events of the dismissal, the Australian people gave Malcolm Fraser and the coalition government the largest majority, the greatest victory and the most significant win of any federal election since Federation. Only two and a bit years later, in 1977, there was a second election victory which was the second largest since Federation. So, whilst historians may debate, the people of Australia decided in their way, at the ballot box, not just once but twice. And, of course, Malcolm Fraser went on to win a third election in 1980.

But it is more than just that; it is the measure of what you do with your time. In particular, given my current role—and the member for Wentworth, a former environment minister, is at the table—I want to acknowledge Malcolm Fraser's environmental achievements. He established the Kakadu National Park, he banned drilling on the Great Barrier Reef, he proclaimed the Great Barrier Reef as a marine park, he oversaw the inscription of the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage List and he ended the practice of whaling in Australia with the enactment of the Whale Protection Act.

Only this week I met with the cetacean working group, which is a group of NGO leaders who are involved in whale and dolphin protection. They asked specifically if I could acknowledge their thanks for Mr Fraser's work in helping to end the practice of whaling in Australia. Project Jonah and so many other groups regard this as a wonderful Australian environmental achievement which bespoke a great deal of humanity.

Beyond the courage and the achievements in the environment was the conviction. His conviction in human rights was clear and undoubted. He championed the Aboriginal land rights movement. He enacted the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. He established the Human Rights Commission and established the Australian Refugee Resettlement Advisory Council. He reversed the position in relation to Vietnamese refugees inherited from previous governments. He oversaw the enactment of Australia's first Freedom of Information Act. And, internationally, there was no doubt he played a fundamental role in arguing the case against apartheid. In particular, through the Gleneagles Agreement, he helped to end racial discrimination in sport.

Then there was his compassion. After retiring from politics in 1983 he served for 15 years as chair of CARE Australia. In that role, he oversaw its place in the world, and this included a five year stint as President of CARE International. This was simply about assisting those who were the least fortunate, the worst off and in the most need. He did not have to do that; it was something which he chose, which he sought, to which he committed himself and through which he delivered real and lasting human and humanitarian outcomes for those that were assisted by CARE Australia and CARE International.

And then against all of that I want to acknowledge the time that I had spent with him as a Liberal member for a seat in which there was a former Prime Minister of my own party, the third longest serving Liberal Prime Minister, the fourth longest serving Australian Prime Minister. I felt it was a duty, a responsibility and an honour to work with him. From time to time I sought his advice on different matters. We may not have always agreed, but I always respected the integrity of his views, and he was always immensely gracious with me. I appreciated that. I remember visiting his house, seeing him in Melbourne, seeing him in the office and at events, and his focus was crystal clear. It was always crystal clear.

And so I want to say to Tamie: I thank you for Malcolm's guidance to me personally and his service to the nation. I acknowledge the immense loss that as a family, Tamie, you, your children and your grandchildren have. He served our country at the highest level. He left an indelible mark. He was one of the giants of Australian politics. Vale Malcolm Fraser.

Clive Palmer (Fairfax, Palmer United Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the last election Malcolm Fraser and I had lunch in Melbourne. When I met him on that cold Melbourne morning he was in high spirits, eager to engage in debate about important issues affecting Australia's future. High on his mind on that cold Melbourne morning and over lunch was the threat to the world and Australia of war. He stated that the world had been at war for over 50 years in different parts of the globe and he wondered when it would all end, when it would all stop. He was a strong supporter of development and sustainable growth and said as Prime Minister:

Development requires modification and transformation of the environment … The planet's capacity to support its people is being irreversibly reduced by the destruction and degradation of the biosphere and the need to understand the problem and take corrective action is becoming urgent.

He saw the dangers to our planet far before others had and thought about the issue. In his travels around Australia as Prime Minister he touched the people and they touched him. He valued our democracy and reminded us in 1980 as Prime Minister that secrecy is completely inadequate for a democracy but totally appropriate for tyranny.

As Malcolm Fraser once said when referring to Nelson Mandela:

If there were six Mandelas around today, a couple in Europe, one in America and in a couple of other places, there wouldn’t be any wars.

The truth is that, if today there were six Malcolm Frasers around—a couple in Europe, one in America and a couple in other places, there would not be any wars. Like many world leaders, he helped Nelson Mandela on his long walk to freedom. He supported the South African people in their struggle for human rights and self-determination.

No greater accolade, no greater title or acknowledgement can be given to any man than that of peacemaker. Malcolm Fraser believed in the reconciliation of man. He sought refuge for the stateless. He saw injustice and he tried to stop it. He saw division in this country and he tried to heal it. He devoted his life to those less fortunate than himself. Gifted and intelligent, he perceived and saw what others could not see. He saw an Australia where all Australian children could join hands and take a long walk together into the future. He saw an Australia where all cultures of the world could be united in one country, valuing their heritage and embracing each other in one nation.

His words in 1981 during his inaugural address to the Institute of Multicultural Affairs are equally true today. He said:

… multiculturalism speaks to us forcefully and directly … It is not an abstract or alien notion, not a blueprint holding out utopian promises, but a set of guidelines for action which grows directly out of our society's aspirations and experiences.

While understated and modest in his manner, he was strong on courage and commitment. One of the rarest commodities in political life is courage—political courage, the ability to do what is right regardless of the cost, regardless of admonishment by your peers, to go forward where others would not go. He showed us the way, and we must follow his example and cherish the gifts that he has left for us as citizens of this great country.

I remember back in the early 1980s when no state in the Commonwealth was interested in hosting Expo. It was Malcolm Fraser who had the persistence to stay with it, to go the course, to continue the fight for Expo to be held in Australia. And then the Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, agreed with the Prime Minister to hold Expo in Queensland. Without Malcolm Fraser's persistence the people of Brisbane would not have Brisbane's Southbank today and Australians would not have enjoyed Expo 88.

I remember another time when Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen's staff flew back to Queensland after a premiers' conference and left the Queensland Premier asleep in the Lakeside Hotel. They go to the Queensland border when they remembered that they had left the Premier in Canberra and they contacted the Prime Minister, who never hesitated in offering the Queensland Premier the hospitality of the Lodge. As Sir Joh told me, when he arrived at the Lodge the Prime Minister even offered him his pair of pyjamas. Malcolm Fraser was quite a bit taller than Sir Joh, and Sir Joh said that as he walked around he had to hold up his pyjama pants so they would not fall off and his feet only went down to where Malcolm's knees were. During the night, Sir John went to the kitchen to get a drink and opened the fridge. The light came on, at which time security challenged him. He held up his arms and remarked to me that security got quite a surprise! Sir Joh Remarked to me that there were not many people that would give their own pyjamas in a time of need for a friend, but Malcolm Fraser would.

For Malcolm Fraser life was not meant to be easy, but for Malcolm Fraser it could have been. He chose his own way freely. He chose a life of service. He chose the hard way, the more difficult road. He should not become greater at this time than he was in life—an Australian that was prepared to give all in the service of his country, to weather the storm no matter how difficult, no matter how hard, without complaint. His integrity was beyond question and, as he said himself:

Flexibility in pursuit of the nation's interests must never be allowed to degenerate into expediency.

His humility moved those who came to know him in his life. He believed in our people and all the people of the region and the world. He brought peace and fought for those who have suffered under the yoke of racism.

In my discussion with him it was clear he had a pure mind, but more importantly he had a pure heart. I extend my sincere condolences to his family. The world is so much better because of Malcolm Fraser. He was a citizen of the world who cared. As it has been said: 'He will stand to those of us who are left as an incarnation of the spirit of the land he loved'. One of the people I discussed Malcolm Fraser with in the last couple of days said he was a big man—with his six-foot-plus frame—for people who had never met him before. He was a big man, bigger than many realised. All of our lives are enriched for having lived on this earth in the time of Malcolm Fraser.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am indebted to the late Wally Brown, a remarkable doyen of the press gallery, who made the following observation about Malcolm Fraser. He said, in his book Ten Prime Ministers, which I note with interest was checked by Niki Savva:

He had many positive achievements, which gave the lie to recent observations by people surprised about how much he had changed, how much more liberal, socialist even, he has become since he left office. The basic fact is, he has not changed. The new Malcolm Fraser is the old Fraser.

An important aspect of Wally Brown's work is that it highlights many of Malcolm Fraser's achievements, achievements too often ignored because of the circumstances of his election to power. There were those so outraged by the dismissal of the Whitlam government that they were wilfully blind to the very real achievements of the Fraser government.

My very clear recollection of that campaign was of the growing and overwhelming support for a change from the Whitlam government debacles. Even in the toughest of electorates there would be cheers for coalition campaigners from pub verandas, notably missing from the election some three years earlier. So effective was the subsequent disinformation campaign against Malcolm Fraser and his government that many Australians remain unaware of his remarkable achievements.

As Wallace Brown set out: 'It was Fraser who extended land rights for aborigines to the states. It was Fraser who appointed Fred Chaney, Ian Viner and Peter Baume as ministers for aboriginal affairs. It was Fraser, under Petro Georgiou's influence, who did so much for multicultural affairs, who supported black Africans in South Africa and Zimbabwe, who stopped sandmining on Fraser Island and protected the Great Barrier Reef from mining and petroleum exploration.' No recent convert on these critical issues. He also was a pragmatic politician.

Paul Kelly, in his book The Unmaking of Gough, said:

Fraser was not terribly concerned about repudiating a key section of his policy platform if other factors came into play. He believed that the government was elected by the people in an act of trust to make the best decision possible at any given time, rather than be tied to a specific set of promises. He claimed that dogmatism would lead to bad government. 'Measures which seem appropriate at one stage can sometimes, indeed must, be superseded by new knowledge, new events.'

I did not know Malcolm Fraser well but I first met him as a Young Liberal and then as a staffer for his Minister for Education, the remarkable Senator Sir John Carrick. As a fierce a public persona he appeared and as aloof as he sometimes appeared, he at times also appeared to be shy and reserved. I can remember him outside the meeting rooms of Federal Council clearly hesitant about engaging with delegates he did not know.

He was encouraging and tolerant of Young Liberals. I recall him accepting our right to move a motion to Federal Council to abolish the two-airline agreement, contrary to government policy at the time. He and Tamie hosted the Young Liberal Presidents for dinner at the Lodge, and were clearly relaxed and enjoyed the debate and company.

I last spoke to Malcolm at the time of my swearing in to this place in October 2010 when my husband and I took the new member for Longman for a celebratory drink. We happened upon Malcolm and Tamie having dinner. Malcolm had in the week before the election raised the issue of the capacity of a young member to have the necessary life experience to undertake our work. Malcolm and Tamie joined us for after-dinner drinks and over the next hour or so we saw what a remarkable couple they made. Tamie had no hesitation in chiding Malcolm and pointing out that he was endorsed and elected in his twenties and perhaps should not have been so critical of the member for Longman. We had a pleasant and convivial evening in which I believe we saw another side to this remarkable Australian.

Malcolm Fraser was a good man. He acted in accordance with his principles. He was steadfast in prosecuting a cause. Not a politician that could be labelled as left, right or even Callithumpian. Not a member who would take easily to today's politics of vitriol and slander. There are things that he has raised in recent times with which I do not agree. Sometimes I have thought he was just plain wrong, but that does not detract from the man. Perhaps he could have done more with his great majority. Perhaps some of his more recent comments are more from the heart than from the pragmatic Malcolm Fraser in power. But who can complain about that? Indeed, it highlights his strength of character, his principles and his humanity.

Finally, let me also take this opportunity to pay tribute to Tamie Fraser. She brought a great sense of humour, of laughter and of common sense to this wonderful partnership. She took the rough edges off Malcolm Fraser's gruff exterior and contributed so much to this remarkable man. We thank her for her enormous contribution as a wife, a mother and as a real partner of a magnificent team. I pass my condolences to Tamie and to the extended Fraser family. We have lost a great Australian.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to pay respect to the life and work of Malcolm Fraser, and by participating in this motion to have heard so many thoughtful and heartfelt reflections from those who knew him well and who felt his influence, which is many of us, in different ways.

I too am fortunate to have met Malcolm Fraser on many occasions and to have joined with him in particular causes: on the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, on Palestine, on the call for an inquiry into Australia's participation in the Iraq war, on Australia's international relations, on a nuclear weapons free future, on good governance and on the debased state of modern politics, among other matters. And, like others, I have been the recipient of phone calls and emails out of the blue from Malcolm both offering and seeking advice on a myriad of subjects. Not one for small talk, Malcolm was a true public intellectual, who never stopped turning his mind to the big issues confronting the nation.

There is an inescapable feeling, as we chart Malcolm Fraser's long-arching star across Australian public life, that the bright constellations we have relied upon for the last 40 years are changing and that the lights we have navigated by for so long—Whitlam, Uren, Fraser—have now slipped together below the horizon with the same turn of the earth. The loss collectively is at the same time magnified and softened. Fraser and Whitlam in particular, who played mortal enemies in the greatest drama and tragedy of Australian political life, were twinned from that point forward and later became close friends. They have left the stage, one after another, and that is cause for us to acknowledge and be uplifted by the characteristics they shared: their courage and compassion, their leadership by principle and convictions, their spirit of reconciliation.

As a star in his own right—perhaps, at least for the Labor side, playing the villain early on, but then consistently in character as a figure of contrarian heroism—Malcolm Fraser needs to be remembered for his leadership and advocacy on a number of issues that he helped turn for the greater good. Every contribution to this motion has a theme of some kind, and I think mine must be on the great value of Malcolm Fraser as a singular voice in support of humanitarian principle. As Prime Minister, he was a supporter of Indigenous reconciliation and of an open-armed, multicultural Australia. He gave us the Special Broadcasting Service as a comprehensive cross-platform multicultural broadcaster following the initiative that began with Whitlam. He rejected the politics of fear, the xenophobia that is often cloaked as a concern for security and that in our time has been attached to Tamils from Sri Lanka or to people of the Muslim faith, just as it once attached to people fleeing persecution in Vietnam or fascism in Europe or deprivation and colonial brutality in Ireland. As Malcom Fraser said:

If you embrace a positive view and embrace the courage of the people who are prepared to try and get a better life for themselves and their families, I think the political pressure starts to diminish.

I think he is right, and I wish that his remarkable leadership on this issue nearly 40 years ago in ultimately providing refuge for tens of thousands of Indochinese asylum seekers—and, in so doing, enriching the cultural, social and economic life of a modern Australia—had not been so thoroughly forgotten or ignored or put aside as anomaly to the prevailing climate of misrepresentation, distortion and fear. And I have not heard the heart of the issue better expressed than Malcom Fraser's words when he said:

If they are genuine refugees, there is no deterrent that we can create which is going to be severe enough, cruel enough, nasty enough to stop them fleeing the terror in their own lands.

In assessing our current approach he was unflinching:

THE asylum-seeker debate in Australia is demeaning and miserable. The politicians who participate in it have contempt for the Australian people. They believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that if they appeal to the fearful and mean sides of our nature, they will win support. They are showing that they believe we won't know enough about the world to know that for the most part what they are saying is plainly false.

In relation to Indigenous affairs, Malcom Fraser rejected the false dichotomy between symbolic and practical achievements, arguing:

Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change.

He was a man who sat side-by-side with Aboriginal people and listened. As Prime Minister he took steps to advance the cause of Aboriginal land rights, and he joined three other former prime ministers—Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating—on the occasion of the apology to the stolen generations.

As Prime Minister, Malcom Fraser also made significant contributions to protecting the environment on such matters as banning sandmining on Fraser Island, ending commercial whaling in Australia, declaring the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and Kakadu National Park, and signing the international conventions on the conservation of Antarctic seals, on the importance of wetlands and against the international trade in endangered species.

Following his parliamentary career, Malcolm Fraser was the founding chair of CARE Australia and he played a leadership role in CARE's work in a number of roles right through until the turn of the century. I know from my own international humanitarian experience what a wonderful organisation CARE Australia is. Malcolm Fraser brought his stature and intellectual force to the advocacy needed to ensure Australia took its place in delivering crisis aid and humanitarian assistance.

Malcom Fraser also played a key part in the campaign to see a nuclear weapons-free world. He was a founding patron of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons—also known as ICAN—and in 2012 led an ICAN appeal for Order of Australia recipients to join a call for the Australian government to support a ban on nuclear weapons and for a nuclear weapons-free defence policy. The appeal was signed by over 800 prominent Australians, including: former Prime Ministers Fraser, Hawke and Keating; former chiefs of the Defence Force; and former defence and foreign affairs ministers, as well as scientists and community leaders. The federal parliament subsequently unanimously passed a motion for a world free of nuclear weapons, cosponsored by then Prime Minister Gillard and opposition leader Abbott. Just one month ago, Malcom Fraser co-authored with Dr Tilman Ruff an article in The Age titled '2015 is the year to ban nuclear weapons'. In it they noted that 2015 is the seventieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they observed:

The Australian government faces a moment of truth—will we continue to hide behind the myth of "extended nuclear deterrence", willing to risk our true security and the incineration of millions in our name, or will we finally step up and get on the right side of history?

I have the highest regard for Malcom Fraser's approach as an internationalist, especially for the perspective and wisdom he acquired through the 1970s—learning, I think, from the realities he encountered in relation to the Vietnam War and East Timor, as he became a vigorous and decisive opponent of apartheid in South Africa and white minority rule in Zimbabwe; as he became an advocate for refugees and their contribution to a multicultural Australia; and as a searing critic of various ill-judged military adventures, including the current engagement in Iraq. For some years, he and I have been part of the Campaign for an Iraq War Inquiry, now renamed Australians for War Powers Reform, that has called for an inquiry into the circumstances of Australia's participation in the Iraq war in 2003 and for parliament to have a role in deciding whether Australian troops should go to war in future.

Australians for Palestine have this week paid tribute to Malcom Fraser, in which they note that in 2009 he condemned 'paying lip service to even-handedness' and warned that 'Australia must not be cowed into an uncritical view of Israel's action'. Following the Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2014, some 80 Australian MPs and former MPs came together to issue the Canberra Declaration on Gaza calling for support for an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel's occupation and an end to the Gaza blockade. Malcolm Fraser was one of those signatories, and I note that he was also a signatory to the recent letter from former Australian prime ministers to the Indonesian President, calling for clemency for the two Australians facing the death penalty in Indonesia, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.

Malcom Fraser could be relied upon to support the voiceless and those deserving of mercy and justice, as well as to champion the rule of law, whether in relation to David Hicks, children in detention or the overreach of national security legislation. As Prime Minister, he established the Human Rights Commission in 1981 and has defended the organisation ever since, most recently criticising the government's bully-boy response to the Human Rights Commission's report on the forgotten children as an absolute disgrace. This week, Commission President, Gillian Triggs, said of Malcom Fraser, 'He tried to make Australia a better and fairer place.'

Malcolm Fraser, for the last 30 years and right till the very end, has been outspoken, principled and brave on so many issues that resonate with me and that define Australia's role in the world, and on the critical question of Australia's independence when it comes to international affairs, especially in our relationship with the United States, a friend that deserves our honesty and best advice, even where it means taking a contrary view. This view was eloquently expressed in his most recent book, Dangerous Allies, a copy of which he presented me with last June. He had inscribed a note to me inside the cover and I treasure that.

Malcolm Fraser lived a life defined by his commitment to public service and by his wholehearted engagement in the discussion of big ideas that must be contested and resolved. I offer my sincere condolences to Malcolm Fraser's wife, Tamie, and his family, friends, colleagues and staff. We have lost an Australian who shaped our country and who expressed its best values in wielding his significant influence on our behalf across the wider world.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased rise to speak on this condolence motion for former Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser. Mr Fraser was a dominant figure in national politics in the 1970s and the early 1980s, a period that stands out in my mind because by the late seventies and early eighties I was in high school and was starting to become very interested in politics. As the Prime Minister of the day, Mr Fraser was a towering figure, both literally and metaphorically, and as I joined the Young Liberal movement in 1981 I became much more interested in him and his government and the policies that they were pursuing. I had the opportunity to meet Mr Fraser only once, at a Liberal Party function which would have been in around 1981 or 1982, and the memory is strong and it made an impact on me.

In the time that I have available I would like to observe that as a nation we should be profoundly grateful to Fraser for his actions in restoring order at a time of chaos in 1975. I would also like to acknowledge the way that he demonstrated, through his career and through the things that he did while he was Prime Minister and the leading member of a centre-right political party, that moral and ethical principles are not the province of one side of politics. I also want to reflect briefly on the question of economic policy in the Fraser years.

When Malcolm Fraser led the Liberal and National parties to power in 1975 he did so at a time when many Australians were increasingly alarmed about the chaos, disorder and mismanagement into which our nation was descending thanks to the economic ineptitude of the Whitlam government. I want to quote from an article in TheSydney Morning Herald by Ross Gittins in which he assessed the economic performance of Gough Whitlam. He cited a chapter by John O'Mahony of Deloitte Access Economics, in a book, The Whitlam Legacy, edited by Troy Bramston. Gittins notes that O'Mahony's review of the economic statistics had this to say:

… the years of the Whitlam government saw the economic growth rate halve, unemployment double and inflation triple.

As Gittins notes, by mid-1975, inflation was at 17.6 per cent, wage rises had hit 32.9 per cent and, after a boom in 1973 and the first half of 1974, the country was facing a severe recession.

There were two particular actions that the Whitlam government took which made the economic situation particularly precarious. He hugely increased government spending and the size of government. Indeed, government spending as a ratio of gross domestic product rose by a remarkable six percentage points in a mere three years. The second action of the Whitlam government that Ross Gittins makes some observations about in this article is that, while inflation was already running very high, the Whitlam government introduced a series of measures which sharply increased pay levels: the introduction of equal pay, a fourth week of annual leave and a 17.5 per cent annual leave loading. Gittins had this to say, a rather tart observation:

Clyde Cameron, Whitlam's minister for labour, simply refused to accept that the cost of labour could possibly influence employers' decisions about how much labour they used.

Ross Gittins went on to say this, I think a fair and measured observation:

From today's perspective, there's nothing radical about equal pay or four weeks leave. But to do it all so quickly and in such an inflationary environment was disastrous.

We should remember that this gross economic mismanagement, this very high, troublingly high, level of inflation came at the same time that many ministers were behaving in demonstrably self-indulgent ways. In particular, there was the alarming discovery that a minister of the Crown was seeking on behalf of the Australian government to borrow billions of dollars from an extremely shady figure and to do so while skirting around the normal processes and safeguards of government. It is no exaggeration to say that the economic situation that Australia faced was chaotic and precarious.

When you look at the experiences of countries around the world that have tipped into galloping inflation, you cannot help but be struck by how profoundly socially damaging that can be. Perhaps the textbook example is Germany, the Weimar Republic, where there was an enormous rate of inflation; the savings of middle-class people were essentially destroyed; and the degree of social dislocation that resulted is cited by many historians as being one of the causal factors of the Nazis coming to power. I simply make the point that the consequences of chaotic inflation and economic mismanagement have been seen in a number of nations around the world over a number of years. Argentina is another country that could be cited, as is Zimbabwe. And the social consequences are always extremely severe.

Our country—it is no exaggeration to say—was facing a material threat at the time that Fraser took the bold and decisive action that he did to bring the Whitlam government's time to an end and to have an election, at which there was an overwhelming vote for the coalition because the large majority of Australians were extremely anxious about the dangerous economic territory into which the Whitlam government had navigated the country. They were very eager indeed to see economic management back in the hands of people with a proven competence at doing that.

And, of course, the record shows that, once the Fraser government came to power, having won that landslide election, it did chart a vastly more economically responsible course. It took some time to retrieve the situation, given the mismanagement that it had inherited, but it navigated in a prudent and responsible fashion, and the dangers that Australia was facing as a result of the economic chaos under the Whitlam government were, thankfully, avoided. I think Australians have every reason to be very grateful to Malcolm Fraser for his tough-minded and strategic approach to ending the Whitlam government as early as possible, to bringing on an election and to getting into power, which then resulted in being able to pursue a much more sensible and prudent course of economic management, which was very much in the national interest.

I think another thing that we can reflect upon as we look at Malcolm Fraser's career is that he demonstrated that he was certainly a man of high principle. He was prepared in government as Prime Minister, as the leader of a centre-right party, to act upon those principles and give effect to them. He opened the door to Vietnamese refugees in a way that markedly transformed and made more diverse the character of our country and of course was in many ways a precursor of subsequent stages of immigration from the many nations of Asia, which has contributed enormously to the diversity and richness of the modern Australia. He was a leader in the fight against apartheid and in bringing together international action designed to bring to an end the regime which supported apartheid. He introduced many path-breaking environmental reforms.

I think one of the lessons we can draw from Malcolm Fraser's actions as Prime Minister is that it is quite wrong to assume that one side of politics or the other has any particular mortgage on moral authority. He acted in many ways, on many issues, from a classical liberal perspective, a perspective which attaches great weight to the rights of the individual, an important moral and ethical tradition and one which is embodied in the modern Liberal Party.

The third area I want to reflect on briefly is the question of the process and progress of economic reform in the Fraser years. In reflecting on that question briefly, it is noteworthy that we have seen, within days of the death of Mr Fraser, the death of another very significant statesman in our region, Lee Kuan Yew. He is remembered for many, many things but also for one very pithy, rather harsh but extremely powerful observation about Australia—that we were at risk of becoming the 'poor white trash of Asia'. That was something that he said in 1980, when Australia's economy was very much more closed and fixed than it became in the subsequent quarter century.

At the time that those comments were made, we did not have a floating exchange rate. It was, in the main, not possible for foreign banks to operate in Australia. The government was the owner of corporations in many sectors of the economy. Both one of the two domestic airlines and the international airline, TAA and Qantas, were owned by the government. The Commonwealth Bank was owned by the government. Many other corporations were owned by government. Within a few short years, there would be a dramatic reversal in the economic policy orthodoxy and a sustained process of liberalising the Australian economy with a view to making it more flexible and competitive.

The question for Liberals is whether it is a matter for regret that more could not have been achieved in that liberalising direction in the years between 1975 and 1983. I found it instructive to listen to the observations of other speakers on this condolence motion over the past few days. The member for Berowra, who served with Malcolm Fraser in the parliament for many years and who came into the parliament in 1973, spoke about the divisiveness in Australian society that emerged from the circumstances of the 1975 election, the Dismissal and the election which followed it, and made the point that this acted as something of a brake on the vigour with which the Fraser government felt it could pursue economic reform. This was because of a concern to not worsen divisions which were seen to be very substantial as a result of bitterness which emerged from the Dismissal and the subsequent election result. I acknowledge that argument; I respect that argument.

However, it is interesting to look at the fact that the intellectual case for economic reform was being made with considerable vigour in the Fraser government years. The Campbell report was a major piece of work looking at changes to the structure of the economy. When the Hawke government came to power in 1983 another report, the Martin report, was commissioned, which essentially revisited and drew on much of the substantive work of the Campbell report.

There was certainly intellectual effort within the government, as well as outside it, going into the question of whether it was time to change Australia's economic model to liberalise the economy. In the field of telecommunications there was another major report, the Davidson report of 1982, which was another example of exploring deregulatory and liberalising directions. Ultimately, these directions were not taken up with any vigour under the Fraser government and it was some time before the directions that were pointed to were given effect to.

These questions can be debated at length. Ultimately, we are considering whether a particular path the country took over a number of years was the right one or whether another path could have been taken. Fundamentally, there is no answer to that question, but it is interesting that, in the observations and reflections that have been made about the Fraser government over the past few days following the death of Malcolm Fraser, a number of observers have mused on that question.

Let me close by acknowledging the extraordinary contribution made by Malcolm Fraser in the political life and the history of our nation. He was a member of the parliament for many years. He was, as I observed at the outset, the dominant figure in Australian politics for much of the seventies and the early eighties. Many decisions that his government took are reflected in features and characteristics of modern Australia. It is appropriate that we should acknowledge his contribution, mourn his passing and express condolences to his widow, his family and his friends. And I do that.

Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would also like to associate my comments with those of the member for Bradfield. I rise today to acknowledge Malcolm Fraser's role as a statesman, his contribution to regional Victoria and Australia, his courage in addressing controversial issues, his personal support for me and for engaging young people in politics. In this brief speech I would like to share a few recollections of my personal relationship with Mr Fraser and thank him for his encouragement and support.

I began work in Old Parliament House in 1980. Mr Fraser was Prime Minister; Mr Howard was Treasurer. They were heady days. I worked for Mr Ewen Cameron, the then federal member for Indi, as his legislative research officer. We were in government; we took action. In Old Parliament House we crossed paths with many people who were or became famous. We shared our corridor with the already famous Ros Kelly, the Labor member for the ACT; the soon to be very famous Bob Hawke; and regional MPs such as Steve Lusher, a National Party MP from New South Wales.

Actors such as Mungo MacCallum held sway in the non-members bar most evenings and we very hungry staffers paid homage to the already very famous media icons such as Laurie Oakes, Michelle Grattan and Alan Ramsey. It was a good time to be a young person, to be working in Canberra and to be part of politics. At that time I was very interested in women in politics. Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle was the then only female member of cabinet and, at that time, only the third ever female cabinet minister. Previous cabinet ministers were Dame Enid Lyons and Dame Annabelle Rankin. Dame Margaret Guilfoyle was the first Victorian female minister. She was a strong role model for us and a great supporter of women in politics.

It would not be true to say that I knew Mr Fraser well, but he would certainly acknowledge me, smile and say hello. He knew who I was, who I worked for, where I was from—that I was from country Victoria. For me, that was enough to know that I was connected.

As I said, it was an interesting time in politics. Mr Fraser was supporting the building of the new Parliament House. Some of us younger staffers wondered: would there be toilets and showers for women staffers? They were in short supply in the old place.

Child care was another issue in the electorate. We were growing in our understanding of how important accessible and affordable childcare was for women if they were to enter the workforce. Some of the staffers were concerned that the design of the new Parliament House did not include any childcare facilities. I can remember convincing Mr Cameron that this was a really important issue and that we needed to take action. We got permission from the then Speaker for a survey to gauge demand and to gauge what the potential usage would be. That felt like a great victory. However, we were extraordinarily disappointed and very frustrated when we staffers were told that only members of parliament would be able to fill out the survey and, as most of them were male—and older—few saw the need for child care. This led to us, as a small group, wanting to take the issue to Senator Guilfoyle and to the Prime Minister. We were persuaded not to do that. The new Parliament House was duly built, and only much later was the childcare centre added, taking over from where the nonmembers' bar had been. In retrospect, I wonder what would have happened if we younger staffers had pushed the issue.

The second story I would like to share regarding Malcolm Fraser happened much more recently. On the Sunday after the 2013 election, he rang me at home. While the vote was very close and still undecided, he congratulated me, as it looked like I might win the seat. He acknowledged what we were trying to do in Indi—our work in community engagement and our efforts to address the widespread sense of disillusionment, disengagement and disappointment that many in our regional communities felt about our current state of political discourse. He had been following my career. He approved of our work with young people, saying that, if there was going to be any change in our nation, it would be because the young people wanted something more. He approved of our work in encouraging the community to participate in politics, knowing that community engagement and participation are the bedrock of an effective democracy. He saw our efforts for what they were: humble yet transparent, open, honourable, courageous and, from his perspective, absolutely necessary. I think he saw in the 'Voice for Indi' movement something of the old-fashioned liberalism and he saw me as a more traditional 'rural community' candidate. He was delighted at the result in Indi and offered me his support. And, on a number of other occasions since then, he offered—as he has to many other people in the House—his advice.

We shared much, including our belief in the need for participation to underpin the democratic process and the need to make sure young people are engaged in and understand politics. And, on issues such as treatment of asylum seekers, we both felt that the political system was letting our country down. Remembering his actions following the Vietnam War and how his government welcomed the refugees into the country and resourced NGOs and community groups to facilitate the assimilation—kids into schools, language classes, volunteer and settlement coordinators—it was a generous investment at the front end and it has paid enormous dividends. Today we can learn so much from his generous, inclusive policies.

In closing, I would like to say publicly: thank you, Mr Fraser. Goodbye and God bless you. May you rest in peace. Thank you for your belief that we as a nation are a generous, caring, practical people. We can both stop the boats and look after people. We can honour diversity. Thank you, Mr Fraser, for your trust and belief that Australia can be better than this.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with colleagues on both sides of this House in celebrating the life of a great Australian and a great Liberal, Malcolm Fraser. Some time ago, the phone rang. It was Malcolm Fraser. 'Josh,' he said, 'I've been reading what you have written and I would like to take you to lunch to discuss foreign policy.' There began a fascinating conversation with Australia's 22nd Prime Minister about our nation's relationship with China, our alliance with the United States and politics in the Middle East. At all times, he was passionate, forthright and extremely knowledgeable about international relations today as well as those of yesteryear. Even though we strongly disagreed about the primacy of the ANZUS alliance and Australia's current strategic direction, he was at all times polite and heard out my arguments. I must say I left lunch with an even greater respect for the man.

Since that time, and particularly over recent days, I have been thinking about how to evaluate the contribution to public life of this towering figure in the Liberal Party, knowing that, after he left office, he resigned his party membership and, at times, espoused views that were diametrically opposed to the policies of the coalition government. The answer, though, for me is clear. His achievements in and out of office are many and significant and should be lauded as such. The Labor Party has made an art form of eulogising its prime ministers, no matter their faults, whereas we as Liberals are at times ambivalent about our past, focusing on what might have gone wrong instead of celebrating what went right.

Indeed, with Fraser a lot went right. First and foremost he saved the country from the economic excesses of the Whitlam government. In 1975 he inherited an economy facing stagflation. Inflation was at 17 per cent, unemployment was rising from 4½ per cent and the world economy had slowed after the oil crisis of 1974. But with cautious economic policy—albeit not with the reformist zeal of Thatcher and Reagan which was to later take hold—Fraser brought stability and certainty back into Australia's financial markets. He also commissioned the important Campbell inquiry, which was to lay the foundation for the floating of the dollar and the deregulation of the financial system.

In foreign affairs, he was strongly pro-American and staunchly anticommunist, supporting the Vietnam War, which helped stem communism's advance through Asia. Fraser's anti-apartheid stand was consistent, forceful and based on the best of human values. He opened Australia to more than 60,000 Indochinese and Vietnamese refugees, giving real effect to the end of the White Australia policy. The significance of this achievement should not be underestimated, as Fraser did not act with bipartisan support as these refugees were the very people Whitlam did not want coming to Australia. So to on Aboriginal land rights—Fraser passed significant federal legislation while also staying true to his federalist instincts, giving self-government to the Northern Territory.

Many of the federal institutions that we enjoy today—the Federal Court, the Australian Federal Police, the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the SBS and freedom of information laws—all have their origins with the Fraser government. When one adds together all these achievements, it is a significant and a lasting legacy fully befitting his three election wins, including two of the largest election mandates ever in Australia, which saw him become Australia's fourth longest serving Prime Minister. And, yes, while in his later years Fraser may have formally left the party like John Gorton, one of his predecessors as Prime Minister, this should not be allowed to overshadow his success in office. Malcolm Fraser will and must always be remembered as a Liberal giant.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Malcolm Fraser was once asked how he would like people to look back on his legacy. 'I'd like,' he responded, 'for them to really look at what I've done, rather than to read contemporary novels purporting to describe what I've done.' We do not need to look very far to find Malcolm Fraser's legacy; it is all around us, embedded in our modern multicultural identity. As he once remarked:

… those who are against multiculturalism have already lost. Taking the word out of government policy won't change the result. We are a multicultural nation. Anyone who looks at the faces in the street knows that, if they think about it.

How true that is. It is there in the form of everyday citizens that I meet in my electorate, at train stations, shopping centres and the like, and on my travels right around this country. I have seen it in the Vietnamese Australians, who fled a nation ravaged by war and found salvation in a welcoming land which Mr Fraser labelled 'a dream of freedom and opportunity'. I have heard and seen it through the SBS, which uniquely showcases and celebrates our diversity, delivering news and programs in more languages than any other broadcaster in the world, and in turn educates all Australians on the myriad of cultures that bless our shores. And I have read it in the words of those who, whilst suffering under the scourge of apartheid, found strength in Malcolm Fraser's unequivocal commitment 'to exert pressure in relation to South Africa; to overthrow something that is repugnant to the whole human race'.

In these past few days, thousands of people who came to our shores from right around the globe have mourned the death of Malcolm Fraser as they would mourn the death of a friend or relative. Indeed, to so many ethnic communities, Mr Fraser was revered as a father figure. It is an attachment born from the depth of Mr Fraser's empathy and understanding to their needs and aspirations, embodied by the multicultural policies he implemented with such drive and dedication. His government served to actively banish the stain of inequality from our laws and institutions and to cement our tenets as a truly egalitarian nation. In establishing the Institute of Multicultural Affairs, migrant resource centres, the Human Rights Commission, SBS and a comprehensive refugee policy, as well as expanding on translation services for migrants, the Fraser government gave voice to the fundamental principle that governments exist not for the mere benefit of a privileged few but for the welfare of all people, irrespective of their background. As Mr Fraser noted in 2012:

… political conflict can live alongside the sustaining of a shared, deep respect for people regardless of colour, race or religion, a belief that people should be respected for who they are.

Through his career, Mr Fraser experienced both landslide victory and crushing defeat; yet his commitment to multiculturalism was always there. Indeed, in his first parliamentary speech, in 1956, he spoke of the need to expand Australia's migration program, noting that 'the challenge that faces us is the challenge to develop Australia'. And, some 27 years later, in his last election campaign launch, he noted:

We are a nation built by people from every land. We will keep working to improve the quality of Australian multiculturalism and a fair go for all Australians.

In recent times, I have seen a lot of references to descriptions of the electorate as now much more volatile than it was in the past. We can see experiences in Victoria and Queensland as examples of first-term governments, rapidly changing public opinions, a decline in the level of 'rusted-on-ness' in our political discourse, and political activism more focused on issues than necessarily parties. I would contend that this is in fact a very similar, if not the same, world that Malcolm Fraser had to deal with. When you look at the scale of his seat numbers as a result of the 1975 and 1977 elections, you see that he won 91 and 86 seats respectively compared to Labor's 36 and 38 seats. Compare those to the 1980 and 1983 results, where, in 1980, 74 coalition seats were won compared to 51 for Labor. It was then reversed in 1983—75 seats were won by Labor and 50 seats were won by the coalition. Some of this can, of course, be explained by the rise of Bob Hawke as Labor leader, but I would contend that Mr Fraser faced factors just as volatile as we experience today.

As an elder statesmen, he held a deep and abiding commitment to human rights, which included serving as the founding chairman of CARE Australia and reminded us all of the power of his moral authority. We are forever grateful to Malcolm Fraser for shaping and illuminating our Australian identity. His unyielding commitment to fostering an inclusive society allows us today to revel in a nation bound by our many cultures which values multiculturalism and social cohesion above politics or ideology.

Mr Fraser once said:

Together in freedom, we can build an Australia of which we can be proud‚ an Australia for our children and our grandchildren.

The passing of Malcolm Fraser serves as a challenge to us all to continue the work to which he dedicated his life. May he rest in peace.

Peter Hendy (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this condolence motion for the Right Honourable John Malcolm Fraser AC CH, the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia. He was a giant of Australian politics. I did not agree with him on all matters, especially some of his more controversial positions in later life, but I note that he had a great sense of noblesse oblige, with a great many humanitarian works to his credit. To me, he was a man who put his views with great conviction, marshalling his arguments to put a rational and reasoned argument.

Beyond that, I note that he was the principal person who saved Australia in 1975. He saved the country from economic disaster. As the Treasurer has said, he was the right man at the right time for the nation. It was his strength of character above the slings and arrows of his critics that saw the demise of a disastrous Whitlam government. Young Australians misled by so-called history lessons in our schools have no real conception of the critical importance of Malcolm Fraser's role in saving Australia and beginning the repair job that was to become the bedrock of Australian prosperity over the last four decades. If he had not dealt with the uncontrolled spending of the Whitlam government, Australia's future would have been in doubt. According to the journalist Paul Kelly, federal spending as a share of GDP had massively increased from 24 per cent to 30 per cent in just three years. Inflation had skyrocketed from 4.5 per cent to 19 per cent and then back to 13 per cent. Unemployment had more than doubled from a decades-long average of two per cent to just under five per cent.

It should not be forgotten that Malcolm Fraser won the largest parliamentary majority in Australian history—in fact, twice—in 1975 and 1977. His work in environmental protection, national heritage, Indigenous rights, care for refugees and wider multicultural issues when he was in government honour the man. These achievements, of course, make a lie of counterclaims that Liberal governments ignore these vital issues. He was instrumental in creating the SBS television network. He oversaw the creation of the Australian Federal Police and the Office of National Assessments, thus strengthening Australia's long-term security infrastructure. In 1980, his government established the Australian Maritime College in Launceston; also, self-government was conferred on the Northern Territory; the Commonwealth Ombudsman was established; the first freedom of information laws were enacted; and his government introduced legislation to establish a Crimes Commission following the Costigan Royal Commission.

Significantly, he commissioned the Campbell report of 1981 which laid the foundations for the eventual reforms of our financial system that were carried out by the subsequent Hawke, Keating and Howard governments. As a result, he directly contributed to laying the framework that allowed Australia to weather the subsequent Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Ironically, for a man who supported industry protection, his government negotiated Australia's first free trade agreement and a closer economic relationship with New Zealand, which was to be fully implemented by subsequent governments.

Malcolm Fraser's government was an unwavering opponent of apartheid. He introduced the Aboriginal Land Rights Act in 1976; the first Australian sites were placed on the World Heritage List under his government; and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park was established. I note that he took great pride in the resettlement of tens of thousands of Vietnamese people in Australia. As the Sun Herald reported last Sunday, Vietnamese refugee and now proud Australian Dr Tien Manh Nguyen stated:

To us he is a true hero. He set a shining example …

Some of these refugees were boat people, but the vast majority came through the organised refugee camps in an orderly fashion that ensured domestic political support for what could otherwise have been a highly contentious policy. In that way, Australia benefitted enormously from this generosity as it still does from our humanitarian immigration program today.

Malcolm Fraser was a man with a genuine literary style. I was delighted to read in his political memoirs published in 2010 his description of living in the bush when he was a young man. As he reprinted from a personal journal that he wrote as a young man before heading off to study at Oxford:

All my life I will have memories of calm nights beneath the sky, of waking before dawn to see the sun rise in the east and of driving over the lonely bush roads with dust eddying all round. The deformed Mallee scrub and the ghost farms, the great plains and the endless sand hills, the majestic mountains, the beautiful valleys and pleasant hills. All these are part of Australia and part of my memories. Among them I will find my home.

Indeed, Malcolm Fraser also believed in the importance of rural Australia in terms of the national psyche. It is what I have talked about as the country-city compact. This compact supported a legitimate call on the nation on behalf of country people. From the time of Federation, our nation's founders recognised that the country needed to have a fair share of attention and resources. The country-city compact formed an integral part of the nation's economic and social fabric. It recognised the interdependence of the country and the city that was so crucial to the tremendous success of modem Australia. It recognised the mutual obligation to share the burden of the costs of living in the country. It also recognised that the country formed a critical part of our nation's character, producing much of our national narrative, collective memory, and many of our heroes. Malcolm Fraser inherently knew this and understood the national psyche in this regard.

In a wider context, this understanding that Malcolm Fraser had is part of what I called in my maiden speech to parliament the importance of pragmatic politics—that is, pragmatic politics while still maintaining the best traditions of liberalism. Indeed, the best, most concise articulation of what I was trying to say in my maiden speech was written by Malcolm Fraser in his 2002 book CommonGround. I would like to quote the relevant passage. It is a long quote but one worth hearing. He said:

Those who look for a perfect system of government are unlikely to find it. Those who look to general rules that can apply in all circumstances will be misled. Good government is essentially pragmatic. Decisions need to be guided by philosophy but based on empirical evidence. Government is not about a deductive system, it is inductive, based on circumstances and facts as they emerge. There are no formulas that can make government easy. Such conclusions, drawn from the great philosophers, provide a strong underpinning of the liberal philosophy. They also demonstrate why totalitarian regimes are generally arbitrary and brutal and why political theories of communism and socialism have so patently failed. In those theories, general rules are drawn and are sought to be applied for all circumstances. That is the antithesis of reason, of common sense, of judging circumstances as they are and making decisions accordingly. If we accept that liberalism must judge circumstances as they occur, that it must be pragmatic in its conclusions, we must also accept that liberalism has to be progressive, it has to evolve. Society cannot stand in one place.

I only had one chance of meeting Malcolm Fraser. It was in 2008, and I was Chief of Staff of the then federal Liberal Party leader and opposition leader, Brendan Nelson. Brendan was meeting with Malcolm Fraser at the Commonwealth offices at Treasury Place, in the centre of Melbourne. It was a friendly and constructive meeting. Despite his differences with the party overall, Malcolm Fraser remained supportive of many prominent Liberals and many of the various positions of the party. I particularly recall that, as I led Mr Fraser out of the building, I said to him that the opposition had been instructed that we could not use the front entrance of the building but had to use the back door for our guests.

In a forthright manner he simply said that, as a former Prime Minister, he could depart from whichever exit he chose. He then proceeded to stride, with the aid of a walking stick, out the front entrance. He was the sort of man who did not often brook opposition and, unsurprisingly, the security guards did not raise a murmur.

Finally, I end focusing on the quote for which he is famous. While he had been repeating the quote for years, he got to national attention when it was included in his Alfred Deakin lecture speech on 20 July 1971. He noted that George Bernard Shaw, in his play Back to Methuselah, had stated:

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful.

In fact, it was in the very same play, in 1921, that Shaw wrote the other memorable lines:

I hear you say "Why?" Always "Why?" You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"

Malcolm Fraser was one of those who said, 'Why not?' and lived his life to the full. What a fitting tribute to a great Australian. We pray for his family. Vale Malcolm Fraser.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise too today to pay tribute to a former Prime Minister who changed the face of my electorate through a principled stand of compassion, racial equality and multiculturalism.

My electorate is home to thousands of Australians of Vietnamese heritage. Put simply, they would not be a part of our community today were it not for Malcolm Fraser. The journey from the Pulau Bidong refugee camp in Malaysia to the Midway Hostel in Footscray could not have happened for many Australians and their descendants without his leadership.

He was a strong believer in a big and prosperous multicultural Australia—a commitment to multiculturalism that went past the mere mouthing of slogans and into the substance of the policy initiatives required to make this commitment real, initiatives like the establishment of the Special Broadcasting Service and his advocacy of the interests of asylum seekers.

Malcolm Fraser, against the wishes of many around him at the time, oversaw the first mass resettlement of Vietnamese refugees fleeing at the end of the Vietnam War. Over 300,000 people from refugee camps in Indochina fled at this time. More than 56,000 came to Australia, as pointed out by the member for Eden-Monaro, under a system of offshore processing for a regional resettlement arrangement.

In an often hostile political environment, Malcolm Fraser tore down the remaining relics of the White Australia policy, and over his prime ministership welcomed a stream of refugees through an offshore processing and regional resettlement agreement. It should not be forgotten that the Vietnamese were the first wave of immigration to be derogatorily labelled as 'boat people'. During a period of retrospection years later, he said, 'If we had taken polls, I think people would have voted 80-90 per cent against us, but we explained the reasons for it.' We are all the better for it today as a result. People were fearful of Vietnamese resettlement in Australia, a notion that may sound ridiculous today, but it is something that we can take some lessons from today.

Over the weekend the Vietnamese community in my electorate, and others around Australia, were mourning the loss of Malcolm Fraser. The Vietnamese community in Australia is undertaking extensive celebrations this year to mark the 40th anniversary of the arrival of the Vietnamese community in Australia. The slogan for these celebrations is: 'Thank you, Australia'. Particular thanks must go to Malcolm Fraser in this respect.

Phong Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee and prominent member of the Victorian Vietnamese community in Australia, and indeed a friend of mine, said of his passing:

The news of his death is not just a national mourning for Australia, but for us.

…   …   …

For every one of us, he is more precious and more respected than our own parents and great-grandparents.

…   …   …

If not for his leadership, tenacity and standing up for us, we would not be here.

I echo these sentiments. In this year, the 40th anniversary of Vietnamese migration to Australia, the Vietnamese community in Australia is the fifth largest migrant community in our country and the third largest from a non-English-speaking country. Articles in newspapers thanking Malcolm Fraser for the chance to contribute to the welfare of this country and referring to him as the second father of the Vietnamese community in Australia, tell only a fraction of this story.

Through his political retirement Malcolm Fraser never left the national political stage. In many ways he was one of our best former prime ministers. I did not agree with him always, nor did all members of this House, but it was difficult not to respect the principled stand that he took. We are in no doubt that he held the views that he was expressing very deeply. He often took part in the national political debate knowing that his opinion would not be popular, not only with his erstwhile political opponents but with friends as well. His courage in standing resolute on matters of principle would surely have lost him even the best of friends along the way. However, the admirers he gained and the respect he earned in doing so will be one of the defining characteristics of his legacy.

Malcolm Fraser will be sorely misse

He will be missed by the people who knew him best, by the people he served, by his former colleagues and by those who value the spirit of independence, moral conviction and intellectual courage in this country.

Malcolm Frasier was, above all else, a man who took the risk of thinking for himself—thinking for himself on issues like apartheid, on Indigenous issues and on the fate of asylum seekers. He was a man who dictated party lines, not obeyed them; a man who took moral stances despite the fact they cost him calumny.

His stance on refugees was a testament to his vision for a multicultural Australia and his moral courage. He invited us to take time for introspection and to show empathy. He noted later in life that we should also ask ourselves what we as Australians need to do so that politicians will learn to appeal to the best of our natures and cease playing politics with the lives of vulnerable people.

Saul Bellow said:

Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything.

When giant figures of their time leave us, it forces those of us left to reassess ourselves, our society and our future. Fraser's emphasis on ideas, the power of moral courage and the nobility of intellectual honesty should be a guiding principle for all of us who value truth and decency in this place.

All of us who work in politics will know that sometimes the way that quotes and the words that we use are truncated and used to define us unfairly. This was a situation that certainly befell Malcolm Fraser. In my family—a good Labor family—he was well remembered for his phrase, 'Life wasn't meant to be easy.' Certainly, for my parents that was a marker of Mr Fraser as an uncaring and harsh figure. It was only later in my life that, as pointed out by the member for Eden-Monaro earlier, I came to realise that it was only a part of George Bernard Shaw's full quote in this respect and that the full impetus of Mr Fraser's message was a far better one for us, and one that I think is best for all of us to remember when thinking on Malcolm Fraser's legacy. George Bernard Shaw told us:

Life wasn't meant to be easy, my child, but take courage: it can be delightful.

Malcolm Fraser gave much to like to many in Australia—as I said, particularly to the Vietnamese community in my electorate.

So, I pay tribute to his contribution to Australia and thank him for the sacrifices that he made in our name.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with so many in this House, on both sides, to rise today to mark the passing of our 22nd Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL.

At this time our thoughts are with his family: his children, Mark, Angela, Hugh and Phoebe; his grandchildren; and, in particular, his widow, Tamie. It is very important that we acknowledge their private loss and recognise that it is they who ably supported him during his 27 years in public life and, in particular, during his time as opposition leader and later as Prime Minister from 1975 to 1983.

Much has been discussed and debated about Malcolm Fraser, his service to our nation, his government's legacy and his continued engagement in public discourse—at times at odds with subsequent Liberal administrations. Upon reflecting on his life I suspect that Malcolm Fraser was in fact a great idealist.

In coming into parliament in 1956 at the age of only 25, Malcolm Fraser was the youngest federal parliamentarian at that time. From his first speech it is clear that he had great ambitions for our country and its place in the world. He had the foresight to predict that our population would grow exponentially from around nine million people to around 25 million people in his lifetime. He understood both the opportunities and the challenges for such a young country, sparsely populated and internationally remote. He was not afraid for the future but alive to the part that Australia could, and indeed would, play in improving the lot of both its own citizenry and those of the world.

He advocated strongly for economic development as a means of expanding our population and maintaining our standard of living. As a liberal he placed great faith in the power and importance of the individual, who he said would 'always reign supreme'.

A man of the land and a true conservationist, he was intent on leaving the world a better place than he found it. He placed value on our natural environment both as a productive asset and for its own innate worth to our planet and its inhabitants. He declared 36,000 kilometres of the Great Barrier Reef as a marine park; he placed five properties on the World Heritage List—the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, Willandra Lakes, Lord Howe Island and South-West Tasmania; he ended the mining of mineral sands from Fraser Island; and he banned whaling in Australian waters during his time as minister. Concurrently, he also introduced a policy of uranium development—with safeguards—encouraged resource development and introduced world-parity pricing for local oil.

His government set about restoring prudent government and economic stability. In particular, he curtailed the rapid growth in government expenditure under the Whitlam government, addressed inflation and reduced tariffs. He did this in a difficult economic climate of unsettled world markets and the aftermath of the world oil shocks.

He had a strong sense of our place in the world as a nation, both now and into the future, as evidenced by his strong support of multiculturalism, Australia's migration program and acceptance of Vietnam refugees, who had been denied by the previous Labor government. His ambitions for Australia to be a respected voice internationally manifested in his using international platforms to argue ardently against apartheid in South Africa.

It is an unfortunate truth that the turbulent years of the Whitlam government, and the division that followed its removal, are to an extent, in current Australian popular understanding, synonymous with the prime ministership of Malcolm Fraser and his government. As they say, context is everything, and Malcolm Fraser's legacy has been mired in the context of this time.

There is a good deal of irony that a leader with strong ideals was forced to confront the reality of the chaotic Whitlam government. In this, perhaps his idealism was matched only by his resolve to serve the country for the nation's best interest and by his fortitude to take action where lesser souls would have wavered.

He said of the Whitlam government's removal:

There was one sort of trauma in having an election forced. There would have been another sort of trauma in having that government stay in power another six or seven months.

Indeed, while for some it was clear that there was a massive agenda of legislative change under the Whitlam government, it did in some respects overshadow the immense economic mismanagement that occurred at that time too, which saw spending increases of 40 per cent, soaring tax rates and a doubling of unemployment in only one year.

In my recent condolence speech for former Prime Minister Whitlam, I noted that Alan Mitchell of the AFR said it took '20 years and four prime ministers to get the budget back under control.' While there have been, and will be, many attempts to rewrite history, the fact remains that Fraser's decision to block supply was entirely endorsed by the people of Australia when they delivered to him the greatest electoral landslide victory in our nation's history.

Much has also been said of whether Malcolm Fraser's political views changed or whether the Liberal Party has changed since his time as leader. Whatever is the case, Malcolm Fraser was certainly forward thinking and dreamed large for our country and for the world. From outside the Liberal Party, much is made of the differences of opinion. However, this is mostly met with sanguine bemusement from those of us within. As a party, we understand that difference should be applauded. Difference challenges us to understand. It can innovate us and stimulate us. As a party, we understand that difference is not synonymous with lack of unity any more than same necessarily equals fair. Difference does not represent weakness, but compels us to test and argue our views and values on their merits, as we should.

I am proud that my local party within Higgins invited Malcolm Fraser as the guest speaker, not all that long ago. Over 250 party members attended the debate and, as always, it was informed and it was robust. While, in the end, our broad church has lost a great parishioner, we as Liberals and parliamentarians commend Malcolm on his unyielding service to our nation; his steely resolve to do what he believed to be in our nation's interest in spite of personal ramifications; his innate understanding that we must strive to leave to our children a better world than the one that we inherited; his commitment to people, their strengths and aspirations, both here and around our globe; and his ambition for a strong, prosperous and respected Australia.

After nearly 60 years engaged in the big debates still much of the 25-year-old new member remained. Ever thinking to the future he said of politics, 'You have to be an optimist. Why involve yourself in issues of public policy unless you are?' Vale Malcolm Fraser.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too welcome the opportunity to briefly speak about the Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser. I have listened to the speeches of others in this contribution and I have done so with interest. There have been some very good speeches in respect of Malcolm Fraser. For many people, the passing of Malcom Fraser brings to a close the Whitlam dismissal era. In my lifetime, it was the most turbulent period in Australian politics that I can recall. It was also, in my view, a low point in political ethics and indeed caused a major test to our Australian Constitution—a test that, to this day, I do not believe has been properly resolved, and there are still differences of opinion as to what was right and what was wrong at the time.

It is an era that I can well recall. Immediately after the dismissal, I was working for Senator Jim Cavanagh, a member of the Senate, and I was working for him for most of the time that Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister of Australia. I recall in those years the deep passions of the people on both sides of politics and the hostility Labor supporters had towards Malcolm Fraser. Malcolm Fraser, along with John Kerr, became the focus of Labor supporters' rancour.

I therefore begin my brief contribution by putting the 1975 dismissal in context as I saw it at the time, because it was indeed the 1975 dismissal that Malcolm Fraser is most identified with. The dismissal came after a series of attempts by the coalition to disrupt the Whitlam government. Coalition governments had dominated both state and federal politics for decades in the lead up to 1975. It was clear to me that conservatives around the country simply could not accept a Labor government being in office in Canberra. So they attempted all they could possibly do to disrupt the government of the day.

We had the Vince Gair affair, otherwise known by many as the Night of the Long Prawns. Then came the replacement of Lionel Murphy, on his appointment to the High Court, with an independent Cleaver Bunton, by then Liberal New South Wales Premier Tom Lewis. Next came the appointment of Albert Field, a non-Labor nominee, by the Bjelke-Petersen government to replace Labor Senator Bert Milliner, who had died. It had always been the convention to replace senators with nominees from their own party, but that was not the case when it came to replacing Labor senators during the Whitlam era by conservative state governments. Finally, when there was a High Court challenge to Field's appointment, and Field had to take leave from the parliament as from 1 October, the Liberal opposition refused to grant him a pair—again, quite different to what I expect would happen in any other parliament.

These were deliberate Liberal Party tactics clearly intended to enable the opposition to control the Senate and to block supply, thereby setting the groundwork for the dismissal. I can only presume that Malcolm Fraser, as the leader of the Liberals from 21 March 1975 onwards, was complicit in the breaking of those conventions by not replacing senators with nominations from their respective parties, by not agreeing to pair an absent member and by threatening to block supply—with the sole motive being that of bringing down the duly elected government. Even worse for Malcolm Fraser at the time was that he was portrayed as a puppet of the Queen and perhaps the USA. Indeed, his foreign affairs policies of the time provided further grounds for that portrayal.

I make those recollections because the Malcolm Fraser I saw in the years subsequent to the Dismissal and particularly subsequent to Malcolm Fraser's retirement from parliament I believe would not have acted or condoned the very actions that he was a party to in the lead-up to the dismissal. Of course, I will never know whether that would have been the case, but I do know that years later Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam not only reconciled; but Malcolm Fraser became a champion of policies and views that Gough had also subscribed to and in many cases had initiated. The Malcolm Fraser I saw post federal politics was an honourable person committed to fairness and natural justice.

Other members have spoken about Malcolm Fraser's commitment to Indigenous equality, and I will make a comment about that in just a moment, but also his support for environmental protection, his universal defence of human rights and, very notably, his stand against apartheid and support of Nelson Mandela. That is all true, and I am not going to cover ground that has already been covered by other speakers in this contribution. I do want to make the point about the land rights legislation. The land rights legislation at the time that was introduced by the Fraser government was almost identical to the draft legislation that the Whitlam government had in place—I cannot recall if it was before the parliament or ready to go to the parliament—at the time of the Dismissal. And so I commend the Fraser government for carrying on with that, but I want to make the point very strongly that it was almost identical legislation that Gough Whitlam had brought into the parliament before he was dismissed. I know that because Senator Jim Cavanagh, who I worked for, was in fact responsible for that legislation being introduced into the Whitlam-era parliament, and his first job as shadow spokesman for Indigenous affairs whilst he was in the Senate was to in fact analyse the new legislation. I have to tell you that, having been given the task of trying to find out if there was any difference between the two, I found it incredibly difficult to find a spot of difference between the two versions of the legislation.

I also noted, in more recent times, the position of Malcolm Fraser on the Palestinian issue and on Australia becoming a republic, again positions he took that went generally against what I would refer to as conservative politics in this country. Indeed, many of his views did not sit comfortably with those on the conservative side of politics, and ultimately Malcolm Fraser ended his membership of the Liberal Party. Of course, Malcolm Fraser's views on refugees were very much at odds with those of his contemporary Liberal colleagues. He not only opened the doors to Vietnamese refugees 40 years ago; but he was openly critical of the harsh refugee policies of recent years.

I will always be critical of Malcolm Fraser in that he was complicit in the dismissal of Gough Whitlam, robbing Gough Whitlam of another two years in office and, with that, the reforms that the Whitlam government would undoubtedly have brought in, but I nevertheless have the utmost respect for the Malcolm Fraser I saw in more recent years: a man who publicly stood for the values that I hold dearly, who devoted his later years in life fighting for those values and who had the courage to do so. His contribution to Australia has been well articulated by other speakers. Every person in a major leadership role, I believe, can claim some level of achievements during the term of that role. Australia is today the proud nation it is because of the collective achievements of many since Federation. Malcolm Fraser can rightfully take his place amongst the names of those Australians who have significantly changed our nation. For that I thank and pay tribute to him. It is for those public achievements that I hope that Malcolm Fraser is best remembered.

To Tamie and Malcolm's family I offer my sincere condolences. May he rest in peace.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on this condolence motion for the Hon. John Malcolm Fraser, a statesman of my party, a statesman of this country and our 22nd Prime Minister. To my regret, I did not know Malcolm Fraser well. During his life I met him in passing on a handful of occasions, but despite this I have never been under any illusions as to the enormity of his legacy and the contribution to the Liberal Party and to Australia.

As I said late last year in my condolence speech for Malcolm's great rival and ultimately his great friend the Hon Gough Whitlam—and I note that these two were the giants of Australian political life—I want to make special mention of Malcolm's wife, Tamie, their four children Phoebe, Mark, Angela and Hugh, and their grandchildren. I extended my deepest sympathy to them all. Our families are often the forgotten people in our political lives. They are asked to give up so much and they have so many intrusions into their lives, and often it is many more times than anyone has a right to ask of them or to expect. To Malcolm's family I want to say that your service has been no less distinguished. Thank you so much.

Malcolm Fraser is without doubt one of the major figures in Australia's political history. He was Prime Minister from November 1975 to March 1983, making him the third longest-serving Liberal PM after Robert Menzies and John Howard. He will also forever be known, along with Gough Whitlam and Sir John Kerr, as one of the three main figures of the Dismissal in 1975. But, like Gough, Malcolm Fraser's contribution to Australian political life extends far beyond the Dismissal.

He has been recognised for many achievements in his time as Prime Minister, and I want to highlight some of the most important—though not exclusive—achievements. He established the Human Rights Commission. He established freedom of information legislation. He created many of the bodies that work effectively today such as the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. I pay tribute to him. He also did some groundbreaking work in many, many areas, including the banning of sand mining on Fraser Island and the banning of drilling on the Great Barrier Reef. Malcolm Fraser helped to set up the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and ensured that it was World Heritage listed, and we are forever grateful for that particular initiation.

He established the Special Broadcasting Service. He began large-scale Asian immigration to Australia, particularly of Vietnamese refugees fleeing communism. And they have been wonderful contributors to Australian life and have contributed enormously to the wonderful nation that we are today. I also want to pay tribute to Malcolm Fraser for his work in Indigenous equality.

For me, however, it was his enduring commitment to human rights that set him apart as a great statesman. He commissioned the 1978 Galbally report, which identified a need to provide special services and programs for all migrants, to ensure equal opportunity of access to government funded programs and services with a view to helping migrants become self-reliant. Many of the settlement programs and immigration policies that we have today are because of the great work that was done in that report—ensuring that the needs of migrants and refugees were taken into account. I consider these sentiments as being an extension of the Menzies philosophy that we need to be a nation of lifters not leaners. And when we look at the great success that multiculturalism has brought to Australia, I think we must all acknowledge that Malcolm Fraser was right.

I see Malcolm Fraser's role in Australian political history as that of transition. For the Liberal Party he was very much a transitional figure, emerging from the Menzies era into the mid-1980s where economic realities were changing. We were transitioning from being an insulated economy of tariff protections to confront the international realities of competition and the need for structural reform, less regulation and increased productivity.

In my mind his role as a transitional man never changed throughout his life. He remained active in political discourse to the end, often changing his views as his perspective on issues changed and expanded. It is a way of thinking that I feel can and should be accommodated in what John Howard referred to as the 'broad church of the Liberal Party'. His transition from being the political enemy of Gough Whitlam to becoming a close friend was a great credit to them both, and is a transformational lesson for all of us.

Malcolm spoke of his political philosophy as being based on the need for representative democracy, where it is incumbent on political figures to be properly informed, to exercise their own judgement, to learn about an issue and then to make up their own minds as to how best to represent their constituents. As such, he was not enamoured of focus group or poll driven politics, which I imagine he would have viewed as being the equivalent of having lock-jaw of the brain. He relished the challenge of debate, and that is something that as a party and a nation we should never be afraid of.

I pay tribute to the former member for Wannon, our 22nd Prime Minister. I would like to conclude by paraphrasing his own words when he left the parliament in 1983. I am confident that he did hand over an Australia 'in as good or better condition than any other Western country in the world'. Malcom Fraser, Australia is indeed a better place thanks to your lasting legacy.

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the people of Kingsford Smith, I would like to pay tribute and offer my respects to the family of Australia's 22nd Prime Minister, John Malcolm Fraser. Malcolm Fraser entered federal parliament at the ripe age of 25 in 1955. He was the youngest member of parliament when he was elected to the House of Representatives, but also the tallest. Over time, he left an enduring legacy in more ways than one on Australian politics.

I certainly did not agree with most of the Fraser government's policies—in particular, the government's approach to economics. During the Fraser years, Australia suffered shockingly high unemployment. The periods of wages freezes left a lot of Australian workers in very difficult circumstances. In my view, the blocking of supply was an unconscionable and destructive manipulation of Australian political processes. However, there were redeeming features of the Fraser government, and certainly in the wake of Malcolm Fraser's parliamentary career he became a great leader of our nation; an advocate for multiculturalism and for respect; and a fierce campaigner against racism. For that, we pay tribute to him.

Malcom Fraser's commitment and leadership of Australia regarding multiculturalism was admirable and deserves praise and respect. His policy of welcoming boat people who were fleeing the Indochina conflict of the 1970s and 80s really established a new bar for immigration policy and multiculturalism within Australia. The foundations of that approach were certainly laid by the Whitlam government but they were built on and raised by the Fraser government and that provided a foundation for the Hawke and Keating governments to extend Australia's welcome to Asia and to firmly position Australia within the Asia-Pacific region, economically, strategically and socially. That is a shift in policy that has paid dividends for our nation. Indeed, his advocacy for multiculturalism, his acceptance of Vietnamese boat people, is something he described by saying: 'I believe we have a moral and ethical obligation'. Those were admirable words.

Malcolm Fraser also deserves respect and tribute for his support of Aboriginal land rights and continuation of the very good work of the Whitlam government, despite some opposition within conservative ranks of the Liberal and National parties. His opposition and advocacy against apartheid is one of his finest moments. The work that he pursued within the Commonwealth to advocate for the end of apartheid, particularly going against the wishes of that shockingly racist British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is a very admirable quality. His advocacy for an independent Zimbabwe and the fact that he stood up to racism not only in Australia but also internationally deserves Australia's respect.

Another very admirable quality of former Prime Minister Fraser is, of course, his support of constitutional reform in Australia and his fierce advocacy for Australia becoming a republic. His vocal campaigning in 1999, as a part of that campaign, was something that earned him much respect in the Australian community. I think that this stems from his clear understanding and his belief in the value of multiculturalism to Australia not only socially but also, importantly, economically. His vision for Australia as a nation that is integrated as part of Asia, that finds its security within Asia, not apart from Asia, I believe led to and provided the foundations for his very solid advocacy for Australia becoming a republic. He was a person who saw that Australia's future would benefit from a change in our Constitution and sending a clear message to our neighbours in the Asia Pacific that Australia is no longer just a colony of the United Kingdom; we are an independent nation, with our own identity—one that is truly placed in multiculturalism, and with the ability to achieve great things domestically and internationally within our region.

The final point I would like to make about Malcolm Fraser is his quite touching, at times, relationship with his former adversary, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, in later years. Their work together on campaigning for an Australian republic, their advocacy for multiculturalism and, in particular, the touching moment of them sitting together in this parliament when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the apology to Australia's stolen generation were great moments in Australian political history. I can understand, having seen that vision, having felt the presence of those two giants of Australian politics in this parliament, why many in our community long for that sort of leadership in our nation once again.

On behalf of the people of Kingsford Smith, I pay tribute to Malcolm Fraser. I offer my sincerest condolences, thoughts and prayers to Tamie and his family. May he rest in peace.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to join those who have spoken before me on this condolence motion for a political giant: Malcolm Fraser, a great and patriotic Australian. Many have spoken of the things he stood for, Aboriginal land rights; the things he stood against, racism in any form; his contribution to domestic and foreign policy. All of the speeches have touched on his service here in the parliament—first as a backbencher, then as a minister and then as a prime minister—and all have touched on his service in so many ways beyond the parliament in all of the years since 1983—giving his view in the arena, arguing for what he stood for, often a position people disagreed with but a position that he would consistently hold to.

During the tumultuous Dismissal, which, naturally, most members have commentated on, he showed his strength and determination, the very attributes that would drive him in all of his conduct and the way in which he held to his views on other subjects, both during his prime ministership and in the years after it. Many have spoken about what was achieved in a policy sense during the Fraser government, and it was substantial. Some speakers have spoken about the time he came to office in terms of economic reform. His former senior adviser David Kemp summed this up very well in the weekend papers. He said:

Malcolm Fraser once reflected with me that his had been a "transitional" prime ministership, in terms of the historic development of public policy in Australia.

That is true. He successfully reigned in runaway spending. He believed in smaller government. He introduced sections 45D and E of the Trade Practices Act, something that endures today and was a critical reform at the time.

It is true that he did not believe in the free market as the solution to every problem. Like all leaders, he was a product of his time. He came ahead of the Thatcher years, ahead of the Reagan years and ahead of the 1980s debate, and it is worth pointing out, as David Kemp did in that very well written article, that many of the issues that were coming onto the agenda during his prime ministership picked up full steam in the years after it. Another former staff member of his and a friend of mine and many in this chamber, Petro Georgiou, wrote on the weekend about his principles. He wrote about the issue of South Africa and about a party room debate, and I will quote from the article:

The gist of their remarks was, 'why aren't we supporting our white cousins in South Africa?

I will not read all of the quote, for reasons of time, other than to say:

That debate ended somewhat abruptly after I advised my colleagues of the realities of the Fraser Government. If they wanted an Australian government that would support a small white minority in South Africa determined to keep the overwhelming black majority in a state of perpetual subjection, they would have to get another government.

That summed up his dedication to principle and that same steely resolve that was so often on display. I know we are not allowed to hold up props in this parliament—

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

but I will, since we are not in question time, refer to one front-page newspaper. It is a picture that appeared on Saturday morning of last week. I raise that because it is of Malcolm Fraser at a campaign rally in 1975 in the electorate of Casey. I will correct myself: it was in the electorate of Casey then, but it is now just in the electorate of Deakin. He was at the Croydon Football Club with a campaign rally on the ground. He is speaking from the grandstand to a couple of thousand people. Next to him is a friend of mine, who was a few short weeks later to become the member for Casey, and that is Peter Faulkner. In the background there is a sign that says, 'Casey is Falconer-Liberal country'. Peter Falconer was elected the member for Casey on 13 December, and his political career spanned the Fraser government. He was easily elected in 1975 and 1977 and, like the Fraser government, he scraped back in 1980, and in 1983 the tide went out.

I spoke to Peter this week and asked him for some recollections and he gave me many. I will read some of them into Hansard. The first is about that rally. He said:

My abiding memory of the 1975 campaign is of a combined Liberal Party Rally at Croydon Park for both Casey & La Trobe … where Malcolm Fraser addressed a noisy and enthusiastic crowd of 2,000 plus from the Grandstand … It was there that you could sense that the tide had turned from resentment and anger at the blocking of supply—and the dismissal of the Whitlam Government—to a rolling bandwagon support for a new Government.

He had many other observations about campaigning with Malcolm Fraser in both that election and in the 1977 election but, as many speakers have pointed out, as acrimonious as 1975 was, Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam became close friends and, according to Peter Falconer, on his observations as a backbencher, maintained a very civil and professional relationship. He says:

I remember being in the PM's office talking about a constituency matter when Malcolm stopped me, picked up a letter and said 'Excuse me, I've got to talk to Gough about something'. He pressed the button on the direct line to Gough's office and simply said 'Gough, I've got something to show you.' Whitlam arrived within 60 seconds, apologised for interrupting me. Malcolm handed him a letter, Gough looked at it and said 'I'll talk to my lot and get back to you shortly. '

Peter said:

I was struck by the easy rapport and understanding between them. It was reassuring to me that the two political giants in the Parliament had such an easy modus operandi when it came to national security matters and other bipartisan issues.

I met Malcolm Fraser a number of times over the years, but I was not someone who met with him frequently in an organised way.

During my earliest days in the Liberal Party—and my friend on the other side walking in will remember some of this—I was president of the Melbourne University Liberal Club. He spoke at the Alfred Deakin Lecture in 1971. He regularly attended these lectures, and as club president I met him there in 1988. Later that year or the next year I invited him to address a Liberal students' dinner, which he happily did. This was five or six years after he had left office. I met him during the republic referendum campaign, at airports and at various other functions and occasionally when he was with his friends, Petro Georgiou and other former staff, who regularly caught up to mull over the old times and no doubt the modern day.

He was active, as everyone has said, right until the very end. He expressed his view. He wrote books. He was unceasing in his commentary. He became a prolific user of Twitter, which only would have made his ex-staff feel relief that, in their time working for him, mobile phones did not exist, because he was an incredibly hard worker. Indeed, late last year, just before Christmas, I wrote an opinion piece about the centenary of women getting the vote in Australia. I had it published in the Melbourne Age. My staff pointed out to me that one of the first people to tweet this article was Malcolm Fraser himself. He was still following the debate at every level.

Dr David Kemp wrote of his policy achievements in a difficult time following the Dismissal. Petro Georgiou wrote of his character and his principle. He also wrote:

Fraser, on hearing of Gough Whitlam's passing observed, "The line's broken. In this world, anyway, it's broken forever."

And it is true that we have waved goodbye to a generation who served this nation.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to 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—

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Order! Leave that to the government, please!

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to 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.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this condolence motion to acknowledge the passing of Australia's 22nd Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Malcolm Fraser. It is important that his contribution, especially to the Northern Territory, is acknowledged. As many have offered, Mr Fraser was indeed a great friend of the Northern Territory and a great friend of Indigenous Australians.

As a primary school student I remember very clearly, as if it were yesterday, when Malcolm Fraser visited the Northern Territory in 1978. It was a significant milestone in the Territory's history as he addressed the first sittings of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory. Under Malcolm Fraser's leadership, self-government was conferred on the Northern Territory. I think this is one of the many reasons Territorians have a fondness for our former Prime Minister.

At the opening of the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory he said to the people of the Northern Territory:

You are embarking on one of the noblest adventures open to any people—democratic self-government. It is one of the hardest systems in the world to run, but it is also certainly the best.

He was so right. History shows us that Malcolm Fraser was committed to providing the best outcome for the Territory. He maintained a hands-on approach when tackling the difficult and unique issues we Territorians faced. He gave the following advice:

But democratic self-government is much more than just a method of exacting responsibility from government, it is of the most fundamental importance to peoples' development, to allowing people to realise their potential through political participation, to enhancing their initiative, enterprise and responsibility.

Malcolm Fraser also recognised the need for the Territory to have independence and autonomy. During his address to the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly he commented:

For decades ultimate authority for the administration of the laws governing the Territory's day to day affairs was held by people thousands of miles away. People who did not always comprehend the Territory's special needs.

I could not have said that better myself. As a lifetime Territorian, I am very well aware of our unique requirements, how important we are and, particularly, the important role that we have played in Australia's history. I have to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, those comments from Malcolm Fraser are as relevant today as they were in 1978, and I can assure you that nothing annoys Territorians more than being told by southerners what we should do. It is clear that Malcolm Fraser not only recognised this but he respected it. He valued us. It is a message that is very clearly still relevant, as I said, for Territorians today.

I think you will have to agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no doubt that the Territory has come a long way. It has come leaps and bounds since the monumental day of 8 September 1978, when we received self-government. There is no denying that Malcolm Fraser's focus was never too far from the Territory and, indeed, Australia's first people. Throughout his time as Prime Minister of Australia, he made a number of visits to remote Indigenous communities around the country, but specifically in the Northern Territory. I understand that he did this so he could hear firsthand how the government could provide a hand up, not a handout, to the Australians who had sadly become our most disadvantaged. Malcolm and his wife, Tamie, visited the most remote parts of the Territory together. They toured Arnhem Land. They visited communities outside of Alice Springs, where I grew up—places like Papunya. They rode camels, sat talking with the locals in the Todd River and went fishing with local Indigenous leaders—but not in the Todd River, because that is a dry river.

He was an advocate of self-determination and autonomy, and it is a great disappointment that he did not live long enough to see the Northern Territory achieve statehood. While he was an active player in seeing the Northern Territory achieve self-government, it was always Malcolm's wish that we would become the seventh state of Australia—something that I hope is not too far in the future. I have been trying to encourage some of my colleagues that this is the future—

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Become part of Queensland!

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not going to become part of Queensland. I think perhaps the state of North Australia might have some appeal to some of my colleagues.

I will always remember Malcolm for his fierce advocacy and deep respect for the Territory. These thoughts were echoed within my electorate last week. I would like to share with the House words from local City of Darwin alderman Helen Galton, who said to me:

My Dad was Malcolm's campaign manager when he stood and was elected to the seat of Wannon in 1955. I have vivid memories of the campaign, even though I was only five years old. Dad went on to represent the Victorian state seat of Portland—he was elected in 1967—which was entirely within Wannon. They were a great Liberal team. My thoughts are with the Fraser family at this sad time. Rest in peace, Malcolm Fraser.

Territorians will always be grateful for his leadership, respect and confidence in us to manage ourselves and our future. A life well lived. This political giant Malcolm Fraser—may he rest in peace. On behalf of all Territorians, I offer condolences to his family and friends. Rest in peace.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with a heavy heart that I rise to talk on the condolence motion for our former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. Mr Deputy Speaker Ewen Jones, I had the great pleasure of meeting Malcolm Fraser once and having quite a long conversation with him, in one of the first sitting weeks after both you and I were elected in 2010. He was staying in the same hotel as me, and the member for Ryan and I spotted him in the hotel bar. I said to Jane, 'Malcolm Fraser's been saying some unkind things on TV about young people being elected to parliament, and I wouldn't mind having a chat to him.' But I was too nervous to go and talk to this person who I had only seen on TV, and I said, 'Can you introduce me?' She said, 'Of course,' and Jane and I went over and we sat down and started having a few drinks with Malcolm Fraser and Tamie Fraser.

It was one of the most amazing conversations I have had in my political career. I might come back to a bit of it, but the piece of that conversation that stuck with me was this. I said to him, 'Mr Fraser, what's your biggest regret?' He thought about it, and Tamie cut him off and put her arm across his chest and said, 'He was the sod that turned the sod on that building.' Of course, they were referring to the building of this building, the new Parliament House. I said, 'What do you mean?' 'That building is lacking soul,' is what he said. Of course, in old Parliament House all the members of parliament had to work together; they had to sit together; they were in the same room together. While politics was fought in a very aggressive way, they were able to leave that at the door and still have a drink in the bar in the old building. And, as we all know, Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser later on in life became great friends. It was a better type of politics, a better discussion. I think that is really the legacy that he leaves us here in his place: how can we breathe a soul into our political discussion; how can we have some civility in our political discourse? This building, while it is completely beautiful, in many ways takes that away. The legacy that I think Malcolm Fraser leaves so many of us is that our politics can always be better. To have a soul in this discussion—to have a sense of purpose in the discussion about what our country can be—surely must be the lasting legacy of Malcolm Fraser.

Of course, as has been mentioned in a few of the speeches in this place, the other thing that we discussed was young people going into politics. Malcolm Fraser in the TV interview I was referring to said some unkind things about young people going into politics—he said they should not be doing it—but, of course, as Tamie pointed out that conversation, Malcolm was 25 when he was elected. He was the youngest member of the parliament and, as has been pointed out, the tallest. I am happy to admit that I am the youngest and the shortest, but he was a young person coming into this place, which presents many unique challenges.

In having that discussion with him and pushing this a little further, I said to him, 'Why do you think it is a bad thing that young people come into politics? What is the reason that this isn't okay?' The point that he was making, which is a point I completely, 100 per cent agree with, is that, when we are elected to parliament, we have to be here for a reason. We have to have a purpose for being in political life. To have a political career that is founded purely on being here for the sake of being here has no reason to it. It has no ability to change the country; it is just self-preservation. Malcolm Fraser pointed out, 'Of course, I could have always gone back to the farm and had a job.' I said, 'Well, I actually come from the farm too, and in every conversation I have with Dad he says, "Come back to the farm and get out of politics."' But what is so important for us in this place, regardless of our background, regardless of our age and regardless of our gender, ethnicity or professional background, is that when we serve in public life we are trying to change the country for the better—that we are serving a purpose in our representation of the people who elect us. That is, again, the legacy that Malcolm Fraser leaves behind.

I would say to all students of history but, I think more importantly, to Tamie and the Fraser family: they should be incredibly proud of what their father achieved—because, love him or hate him, he changed this country. The one thing that Malcolm Fraser always wanted us to be as a nation is proud and independent. That is such a lasting legacy. There is something in the Australian psyche where we almost like to knock ourselves down and say that we cannot be this great nation, but he was an absolutely true patriot in the sense that he believed incredibly strongly that we should be proud of the fact that we are Australians; that we should be an independent nation capable of making its own decisions and planning its own course in the modern world. I think that is something we should be proud of. That is a patriotic position to take. He is somebody who understood also that our country is stronger when we have diversity. Diversity is something that should be celebrated and embraced and that contributes to our society rather than takes away from our society and our culture.

So I would say, when history writes the story of Malcolm Fraser, I think it will be far kinder than many of his critics today on both sides of the political aisle. We should all be proud of the contribution that he has made. As he goes off to another place, his family, and particularly Tamie, can rest easy knowing that they were part of something that changed this country for the better. With those words, may he rest in peace.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am probably one of the few people left in here who actually worked with Malcolm Fraser—although I think, being in the Country/National party in those days, it would be more accurate to say we worked against him! When you write a history book, you do not have any control over the story; you just have to start writing and then follow where the biro leads you. I was very surprised after I completed my history of Australia—which was a moderate bestseller, if I could say so.

A government member: I bought a copy!

Thank you! We sold about 22,000 copies, which was the top-selling nonfiction work in that year. The book starts off with Ted Theodore, and it is a very sad reflection upon Australia history that, while he is easily the most important person in Australian history, I would say that less than 0.01 per cent of the population knows who he is. If you say, 'Who was Ted Theodore?'—and I have done it again and again—they say, 'He was an American president, wasn't he?'

You could not get three more unalike people on the planet than Malcolm Fraser, Paul Keating and Bob Katter. They are great men, prime ministers of Australia, and I am nobody, but you could not get three more unalike people than those three people. Malcolm Fraser was asked who his heroes were. He said the American Franklin Roosevelt and the Australian Edward Theodore. That was a big thing coming from a person who was talking about the founder of the labour movement in Australia. Paul Keating was asked the same question and he said JT Lang and Ted Theodore. Bob Katter, if you walk into his office, sits under a big picture of 'Jack' McEwen, of course, and beside his photo is Ted Theodore. So I always thought that was very much to Malcolm Fraser's credit, and it also told you a lot about him in that he was not bound to the hidebound thinking of the traditional 'Liberal'.

To give you a picture of the man, I think one of the best portraits I heard was from Lee McNicholl, a very good, close friend of mine, who was a vet with a big company. He said, 'We had Fraser out there because he was a shareholder in the company.' I said, 'What's he like?' He said: 'He's really weird. He never spoke to any of us. We talked over lunch, and he just sat there saying nothing.' He said, 'We went back down to the yards working the cattle, and he just came down with us, and he stood there all day in the dust and dirt and worked the gate in the yards,' which is a very dangerous job. You have wild cattle coming through. They can decide to attack you instead of going through the gate. He said: 'He just worked there all day long. People yelled at him, "Do this," and he did it. Then, when he was finished, he just walked up to the homestead, but he still hadn't spoken to anyone.' I think that portrait would tell you a lot about the man.

Malcolm Fraser had a very good intellect. He wrote an article on the sugar industry. This is the thing. You would think, 'Well, what would a grazier from outside of Melbourne know about the sugar industry of North Queensland?' He said that free trade is an appallingly stupid concept in a country where one of the top 10 export industries for its entire history has been the sugar industry. He said the situation is that the Europeans subsidise their sugar, and they are the biggest sugar-producing nation in the world—bigger than Brazil and bigger than India in sugar. They subsidise their product to the tune of around 700 per cent. He said, 'So, if you're talking about free trade, how do you free trade?' This is one of the most important products in Australian history. It saved us and rescued the country in the Great Depression, for example. It is the mainstay of the Queensland economy—that and coal, even to this very day. It is still the biggest employer in the state of Queensland. He said, 'The Americans subsidise it at 300 per cent, and the Brazilians cross-subsidise from ethanol to the tune of about 100 per cent.' Sorry, I will correct that: 'to the tune of about 40 per cent' is what he said.

Now, to give an adequate portrait, I cannot help but tell this story. I was a bit confused as to whether it made the final cut in my history book or it did not. A member of parliament in Queensland tells the story that, when he was a young Liberal, Malcolm came up and had them all in a circle, and he said, 'Now, we've got to decide upon a leader for our party.' This Liberal bloke said, 'Well, haven't we got a leader—Bill Snedden?' 'No, no, no, he's only a stopgap.' They said, 'Well, what about Peacock?' 'Oh, no, we couldn't possibly have him,' and he gave the reasons why. Then they said, 'Well, what about Howard?' Then he gave reasons why it would be impossible to have Howard. After about 15 minutes of going through all the options, someone said, 'What about you, Malcolm?' He said, 'Yes, I suppose I must shoulder my responsibilities.' I thought it was a very funny story, but it also told you a bit about him.

I cannot help but tell one other story about his notorious arrogance. A friend of mine who was very drunk at a function said, 'I'm going to talk to him about roads.' I said: 'Roads are a state matter. You don't talk to the Prime Minister about roads.' Anyway, he elbowed his way up—Malcolm was looking at a point in the ceiling—and he explained to him about roads, and Malcolm completely ignored him. No-one was talking, so I then explained to him about the great Bradfield scheme. Malcolm was still looking at the point in the ceiling, and whilst I was talking to him he just turned around and walked off—whilst I was talking to him!

Having said that: some four or five years later, Bjelke-Petersen announced the building of the great Bradfield scheme, which I had spent 20 years of my life advocating. Within two months Malcolm Fraser came out, completely unapproached by anyone, including the state government, announcing that the federal government would also participate in the building of the great Bradfield scheme. Our wonderful Dr Bradfield, who built the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the underground railway system, which won the international prize for engineering in the year it was built, is probably most famous for what he did not build, which was the Bradfield scheme to take a small proportion of the massive floodwaters from the mountains of Far North Queensland and turn it back through the ranges onto the inland plains of Australia. But it demonstrated (a) that the man had a great vision for his country, (b) that he could translate that vision into real action for the people of Australia, and (c) that he fearlessly went out there to advocate something which may not necessarily have been popular in the southern cities of Australia, nor would it have been understood in the southern cities of Australia.

Ernie Bridge's scheme for Western Australia, which was a similar scheme, cost one of the Liberal aspirants for the premiership of that state an election, it was said, because Perth said, 'Why should we spend any money on that sort of thing?' One should have reminded Perth about O'Connor's pipeline. Having said that: the great tragedy was that Bjelke-Petersen was gone some four months later, and Malcolm was gone some five months after that. The great aspirations of the great Ted Theodore got blown away by the Great Depression, and the winds of politics blew away two very great Australians, I think, in the form of Bjelke-Petersen and Malcolm Fraser.

Malcolm was fearless in advocating a bit of good sense about the economy of Australia. You ask one of your sixth or seventh major export items to work in a corrupted world market and then preach to us about a level playing field. He had the fearless courage to stand up to his Liberal colleagues and write what I thought was a brilliant article in The Financial Review. He was a person that, as I say, could see the bigger picture and the bigger vision. He went for the Bradfield scheme.

But his was the last government in Australian history that defended the little Australian—the ordinary Australian—against the big oil companies and against the Woolworths and Coles. They fearlessly went in with the sites act, confining the ownership of the service stations in Australia to 400 sites. There were 26,000 service stations in Australia at that time, and the oil companies could own no more than 400 sites. So 90 per cent of the throughput belonged to the owner operators, the service station owners of Australia—of whom, I might add, John Howard's father was one.

I have not seen in politics anyone courageously stand up to the oil companies in the 25 years since Malcolm Fraser left the prime ministership of Australia. That is all the more credit to him. He makes his name in the history books as the person who fought tenaciously for the owner-operator, the little bloke, in Australian society. So whilst he may have been tall and yes, he most certainly was arrogant and a most unfriendly person, whilst he may have been all of those things, history will judge you on what happened whilst you were in this place. And history judges him very, very kindly.

The bane of the exporters of Australia, whether they be mining exporters, agricultural exporters or the motor vehicle industry battling for survival against imports, was when the dollar was allowed to free float under Paul Keating. And I, believe it or not, was on record praising Paul Keating. That is something I hate to own up to, but I was. When the dollar was allowed to free fall, it came down where it should be, to 49c—and praise him I should. But then, for reasons inexplicable to me, he propped it up. I spent a day with Doug Anthony, trying to have it explained it to me why Keating would prop up the dollar. Doug Anthony said to me, 'We as the Country Party do not worry about subsidies or tariffs; what we are about is the value of the currency.' Three times the Country Party walked out of coalition; once was under Menzies, leaving Menzies out in the cold for eight years. The first battle they had when they went back into government was when Menzies announced a revaluation of the dollar. Two days later McEwen announced that there would be a devaluation. Needless to say, it was devalued.

Similarly, Billy McMahon announced a revaluation and Doug Anthony, a week later, announced that there would be a devaluation. It was devalued and I got 30 per cent more for my cattle that year. So that is why I loved Doug Anthony!

When Peter Costello came in he, like Keating, initially did the right thing. Heaven forbid that I should be on record as praising Peter Costello but, once again, I was. We get preached to about free trade, but that is all we have ever asked for. You allow the dollar to free fall and it will find its level. Its level, quite clearly, was the level that it hit with Peter Costello, which was 51c. When it was allowed to free fall under Keating it went to 49c and when it was allowed to free fall under Peter Costello it went to 51c.

For reasons that I cannot explain to anyone, the governments of Australia have decided to have a high currency policy. America and China almost came to firing bullets at each other because both of them accused each other of artificially holding down their currency, which of course they are both doing, along with Japan and Europe and every other country on earth. But this is the only country where, whoever is the government, they actually skite about the dollar going up. 'It demonstrates what a brilliant Treasurer I am,' to quote Mr Keating. Mr Costello said constantly in this place, 'The dollar is going through the roof; it reflects glory upon this government.' He would say it humorously, but he said it. I am not actually skiting about putting the dollar up. Once upon a time there was a political party in this place that would have brought the government down for even thinking that way.

Malcolm Fraser brought the currency down 30 per cent when he was in office. So God bless Malcolm Fraser! He saw the bigger vision for his country in things like the Bradfield Scheme. He fearlessly wrote articles pointing out the stupidity of the free trade regime when no-one else on earth was free trading and he aggressively implemented that philosophy for the greater good of all of Australia. That 30 per cent reduction in the value of the currency enabled our car industry and sugar industry to prosper. It was the fathering of mining in this country and it brought prosperity and riches to every aspect of our lives in Australia. So, for all of his arrogance and shortcomings, God bless Malcolm Fraser.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on this condolence motion for our 22nd Prime Minister, the Hon. Malcolm Fraser. Malcolm Fraser was first elected to parliament back in 1955. After 11 years, he served in cabinet in 1966. He became our 22nd Prime Minister in 1975, going on to win elections in 1977 and 1980. He finally lost office in 1983. He died earlier this week, on 20 March, aged 84.

I would like to add my words to the many wonderful condolence speeches that have been said in this chamber. I would like to highlight a few great achievements of Malcolm Fraser and how history has proven that the decisions that he made at the time showed that he was on the right side of history.

I would first like to speak about the work that Fraser did in removing the Whitlam government. I know it is often a bane to the Left side of politics, but history records the absolute ruinous record of the Whitlam government. We saw that in 1974-75, in one year, government spending actually increased an incredible 40 per cent. At the same time, taxes were whacked up by 30 per cent. That caused massive dislocations to the economy. Inflation hit above 20 per cent and we saw a massive increase in unemployment, rising to the highest level since the Great Depression. We also saw the chaos of the Khemlani affair—the Khemlani loans affair—an economic disaster that ruined Australia's reputation.

But if you look at perhaps what was the worst part, and the reason it was so essential that Malcolm Fraser won that 1975 election, it was the way that the then government—the Labor Party—went about funding themselves. This is an unbelievable part of our Australian history—the Labor government actually sought $2 million in secret election funding from the Iraqi Baathist Socialist Party. The then previous PM actually sent an envoy to meet with Saddam Hussein, the then Vice-President of Iraq. As Greg Sheridan says of this sordid period in our history:

… on any measure for an Australian political leader to seek secret—

Debate interrupted.