Malcolm Fraser

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Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser
Malcolm Fraser
In office
11 November 1975 – 11 March 1983
Preceded by Gough Whitlam
Succeeded by Bob Hawke
Born 21 May 1930
Australia Melbourne, Victoria
Political party Liberal
This article is about the former Prime Minister of Australia; for the Western Australian public servant, see Malcolm Fraser (surveyor).

John Malcolm Fraser AC CH PC (born 21 May 1930) is an Australian politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia. He came to power in November 1975 in the circumstances of the dismissal of the Whitlam government. After two huge election victories and many legislative achievements, he was defeated by Bob Hawke in 1983, and ended his career alienated from his own party.

Contents

[edit] Rise to Leadership

Born in Toorak a suburb of Melbourne, but growing up on a property near Deniliquin in western New South Wales, Fraser was the son of Neville Fraser, a wealthy grazier. His mother, Una Fraser (nee Woolf), had a Jewish father, a fact which influenced his attitudes towards multiculturalism. The Frasers had had a long history in politics: his grandfather, Simon Fraser, had served in the Victorian parliament and later in the Australian Senate. Fraser was educated at Glamorgan (now part of Geelong Grammar School), Melbourne Grammar School, and completed a degree in politics and economics at Oxford University in 1952.

Fraser contested the seat of Wannon, in Victoria's Western District, in 1954 for the Liberal Party, losing by 17 votes. The following year, however, he won the seat with a majority of more than five thousand, becoming the youngest member of the House of Representatives, and continued to represent Wannon until his retirement. In 1956 he married Tamara "Tamie" Beggs, a grazier's daughter. The couple had four children. Tamie Fraser professed to have no interest in politics but was influential behind the scenes.

Fraser developed an early reputation as an extreme right-winger, and he had a long wait for ministerial preferment. He was finally appointed Minister for the Army by Harold Holt in 1966. Under John Gorton he became Minister for Education and Science, and in 1969 he was made Minister for Defence: a challenging post at the height of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War and the protests against it.

In March 1971 Fraser resigned abruptly in protest at what he said was Gorton's interference in his ministerial responsibilities. This led to the downfall of Gorton and his replacement by William McMahon. Under McMahon, Fraser once again became Minister for Education and Science. When the Liberals were defeated at the 1972 elections by the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam, he became a member of the Opposition front bench under Billy Snedden's leadership.

Fraser soon became convinced that Snedden was a weak leader, and Snedden's defeat at the 1974 elections hardened his view. In March 1975 he staged a leadership coup and became Leader of the Opposition, on a policy of using the conservative parties' control of the Senate to force the Whitlam government to an early election as soon as possible. A tall, patrician figure with a hectoring speaking style, Fraser was detested by Labor voters, but seen as a hero by conservatives.

In 1975, amidst a series of ministerial scandals that were rocking the Whitlam Government, Fraser decided to use his Senate numbers to block Supply — preventing the government's budget bills from passing the Senate, where the Coalition had a majority — and thus force an early election (see Australian constitutional crisis of 1975). Several months of deadlock followed, until the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, intervened and dismissed Whitlam on 11 November 1975. Fraser's role in the dismissal remains one of the most hotly-debated subjects in Australian political history, and he was widely reviled by Labor.

Fraser was immediately sworn in as caretaker prime minister, despite not having a majority in the House of Representatives, and he immediately advised Kerr to call elections for both Houses.

[edit] Prime Minister

The Liberal-Country Party coalition won a landslide victory, greatly assisted by the strong support of the media, notably the Murdoch press, which had previously supported the ALP. The Coalition won a second term nearly as easily in 1977. Fraser used this period to dismantle some of the programs of the Labor government, notably the universal health insurance system Medibank. He embarked on a round of sharp cuts to public spending as part of the Coalition's policy to rein in inflation, which had soared under Whitlam; as a result of the cuts, which affected many areas of the federal public service.

But Fraser did not carry out the radically conservative program that his enemies had predicted, and that some of his followers wanted. He in fact proved surprisingly moderate in office, to the frustration of his Treasurer (finance minister), John Howard and other Thatcherite ministers, who were strong adherents of monetarism. Thanks in part to the heavy cuts in government spending, Fraser's economic record was marred by rising unemployment, which reached record levels under his administration, and which were also exacerbated by the effects of Whitlam's controversial 25% reduction in tarriffs in 1973 -- soon decimated local manufacturing indutries -- and the ongoing effects of the global oil crisis that had begun in 1973.

Fraser was active in foreign policy. He supported the Commonwealth in campaigning to abolish apartheid in South Africa and white minority rule in Rhodesia. In 1979 Fraser played a leading role in the settlement which created an independent Zimbabwe and installed Robert Mugabe in power, which was applauded at the time. Under his government, Australia also recognised Indonesia's annexation of East Timor, although many East Timorese refugees were granted asylum in Australia.

Fraser was a strong supporter of the United States and supported the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. But although he persuaded some sporting bodies not to compete, Fraser did not try to the prevent the Australian Olympic Committee sending a team to the Moscow games.

In immigration policy Fraser also surprised his critics. He expanded immigration from Asian countries and allowed more refugees to enter Australia. He supported multiculturalism and established a government-funded multilingual radio and television network, the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), a Whitlam initiative,

Despite his support for SBS, the Fraser government imposed stringent budget cuts on the national broadcaster, the ABC, which came under repeated attack from the Coalition for its supposed left-wing bias and for allegedly "unfair" or critical coverage on TV programs including This Day Tonight and Four Corners, and on the ABC's new youth-orieted radio station Double Jay (2JJ). One of the results of the cuts was the plan to establish a national youth radio network -- in which Double Jay was the first station -- was delayed for many years, and did not come to fruition until the 1990s.

Fraser also legislated to give Indigenous Australians control of their traditional lands in the Northern Territory, but would not impose land rights laws on the conservative governments in the states.

[edit] Decline and fall

At the 1980 elections, Fraser saw his majority sharply reduced and his coalition lost control of the Senate. Fraser was convinced, however, that he had the measure of the Labor leader, Bill Hayden. But in 1982, a protracted scandal over tax-avoidance schemes run by prominent Liberals plagued the government, and the economy experienced a sharp recession. A popular minister, Andrew Peacock, resigned from Cabinet and challenged Fraser's leadership. Although Fraser won, these events left him politically weakened.

By the end of 1982 it was obvious that the popular former trade union leader Bob Hawke was going to replace Hayden as Labor leader. Fraser wanted to call a snap election to defeat Hayden before Hawke could replace him, but he was prevented by the tax-evasion scandal and by an attack of ill-health. When Fraser acted, he had left his run too late. On the day Fraser called the election for 5 March, Hawke replaced Hayden as leader of the ALP and Leader of the Opposition. Fraser was heavily defeated by Hawke in the election.

Fraser immediately resigned from Parliament. Over the 13 years that the Liberals then spent in opposition until 1996, they tended to blame the "wasted opportunities" of the Fraser years for their problems, and Fraser grew resentful of this and distanced himself from his old party. The Hawke Government supported his unsuccessful bid to become Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations.

[edit] Retirement

In retirement Fraser served as Chairman of the United Nations Panel of Eminent Persons on the Role of Transnational Corporations in South Africa 1985, as Co-Chairman of the Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons on South Africa in 1985-86, and as Chairman of the UN Secretary-General's Expert Group on African Commodity Issues in 1989-90. Fraser became president of the foreign aid group Care International in 1991, and worked with a number of other charitable organisations.

In 1986, while Fraser was visiting Memphis, Tennessee, his hotel room was burgled of his luggage, money, passport and clothes. The mysterious loss of his trousers resulted in national amusement, and the incident passed into Australian folklore.

After 1996 Fraser was critical of the Howard Liberal government over foreign policy issues (particularly support for the foreign policy of the Bush administration, which Fraser saw as damaging Australian relationships in Asia). He campaigned in support of an Australian Republic in 1999 and in the 2001 election campaign he opposed Howard's policy on asylum-seekers.

The 2001 election completed Fraser's estrangement from the Liberal Party. Indeed, he and Whitlam say they are now good friends. Many Liberals became unrestrained in their attacks on the Fraser years as "a decade of lost opportunity," on deregulation of the Australian economy and other issues. This was highlighted when in early 2004 a Young Liberal convention in Hobart called for Fraser's life-membership of the Liberal Party to be ended. As Fraser passed 70 he had lost none of his combativeness and generally gave as good as he got in these exchanges.

In 2006, Fraser launched a "scathing attack" on the current Howard Liberal government, attacking their policies on areas such as terrorism and civil liberties, and that "if Australia continues to follow United States policies it runs the risk of being embroiled in the conflict in Iraq for decades and a fear of Islam in the Australian community will take years to eradicate". Mr Fraser also said the way the Government handled the David Hicks, Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez Solon cases, was questionable.[1]

[edit] Honours

Fraser was made a Privy Councillor in 1976, a Companion of Honour in 1977 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1988.

He has been awarded honorary doctorates from Deakin University, Murdoch University and the University of South Carolina.

[edit] Quotes

  • "Life wasn't meant to be easy"

[edit] References

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    [edit] See also

    [edit] Further reading

    • Ayres, Phillip, Malcolm Fraser, a Biography, Heinemann, Melbourne, 1987.
    • Kelly, Paul, "Malcolm Fraser", in Michelle Grattan (ed.), Australian Prime Ministers, New Holland, Sydney, 2000.

    [edit] External links

    Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
    Preceded by:
    Billy Snedden    		 Leader of the Liberal Party
    1975–1983    		 Succeeded by:
    Andrew Peacock
    Preceded by:
    Gough Whitlam    		 Prime Minister of Australia
    1975–1983    		 Succeeded by:
    Bob Hawke
    Prime Ministers of Australia
    Barton | Deakin | Watson | Reid | Fisher | Cook | Hughes | Bruce | Scullin | Lyons | Page | Menzies | Fadden | Curtin | Forde | Chifley | Holt | McEwen | Gorton | McMahon | Whitlam | Fraser | Hawke | Keating | Howard
    Leaders of the Liberal Party of Australia
    Menzies | Holt | Gorton | McMahon | Snedden | Fraser | Peacock | Howard | Peacock | Hewson | Downer | Howard
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