MALCOLM FRASER 1930-2015 THE POLITICAL MEMOIRS

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Malcolm Fraser, Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister, has passed away, remembered as a “a giant of Australian politics” and a “great moral compass”. Malcolm Fraser: A Political Memoir, was written as part authorised biography, part personal testament with journalist Margaret Simons. It was published in 2010 and much praised by the reading public. Scion of a wealthy country family, educated at Oxford, he became one of the towering figures of Australian politics, championing multiculturalism, Aboriginal rights and a greater role for the country internationally.

He believed in a big Australia. His inaugural speech to parliament was all about immigration: Fraser looked forward to a nation of 25 million souls. The country almost achieved his dream, with official figures predicting a population of 23,783,208 in the week of his death.

As a minister in the Gorton government, Fraser became the first federal politician to use the word “multiculturalism” — an historic break from the Anglocentric past of his own party.

He became opposition leader in 1975, facing off against Gough Whitlam and becoming prime minister in the wake of the Whitlam’s Dismissal, one of the most pivotal points in the Australian politic history.

Mr Fraser’s multicultural conviction found shape in immigration policy in the post-Vietnam war push to bring refugees from mainland South East Asia to Australia. “I believe we had a moral and ethical obligation,” Mr Fraser later 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 were also working to get people to understand that the idea and the reality of a multicultural Australia could be an enormous strength to this country, not a weakness. There is strength in this kind of diversity so long as we understand what it’s about.”

In addition to multiculturalism, Malcolm Fraser embraced Aboriginal rights, led the Commonwealth push to end Apartheid in South Africa and argued for an independent Zimbabwe.