History

WITHOUT AFFECTION

Malcolm Fraser, (Australian Liberal PM, 1975-83) who died on March 20, aged 84, was an odious, divisive politician who will not be missed by the nation.

Yet according to Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young the late Australian Prime Minister was ‘a man of principle,’ while foreign minister Julie Bishop lauded him a ‘giant.’

Well, political minnows have a right to be wrong and that pair usually are.

Malcolm Fraser was a complete failure as Prime Minister from 1975-83 and he was a political wrecker all of his life.

Fraser, as Army minister in the Gorton Government petulantly resigned his portfolio, in March 1971, triggering off a crisis that saw PM John Grey Gorton resign his office and the defeat of the McMahon Government the next year. Labor returned, under Gough Whitlam, after 23 years in opposition.

The bitterness towards Fraser lasted a long time in Liberal ranks. After Whitlam was sacked by the Governor-General (Kerr) and ‘Kerr’s Cur’ (Fraser) installed as PM, pending an immediate election, Gorton in disgust, came out of retirement to stand as an Independent candidate for the Senate in the 1975 December election.

When Gorton passed away in 2002 his former Attorney General, Tom Hughes, didn’t miss Fraser at the funeral. Looking at Fraser, in his eulogy to Gorton, he spoke of “political assassination” and “Gadarene swine.” (These were the evil spirits that Jesus thrust from a possessed man into pigs, driving them mad and causing them to jump off a cliff).

There really has never been quite another funeral oration to match the Hughes efforts! (Indeed after the funeral, current Liberal Minister, and prime ministerial aspirant, Malcolm Turnbull walked over to his father-in-law and said “now tell us what you really think about Fraser.”)

Not content with his early role, wrecking the Gorton Government, Fraser was quick to undermine Bill Snedden as Liberal Opposition Leader (1972-75). Fraser challenged Snedden late in 1974, unsuccessfully, but completed the hatchet job in March of the next year. Snedden had led the Opposition to the May 1974 double dissolution election and only lost by five seats but he was never to have a second chance.

Fraser then set out to destroy the re-elected Whitlam Government and he would again use the Senate in an attempt to force another early election in December 1975. Gough Whitlam having been forced to one early election in May 1974 was not in the mood to be forced to another mid-term election.

For those conservatives who think Kerr acted properly, by acting so treacherously to the man who selected him, they should consider some facts.

Upper Houses forcing governments to an election every 18 months is not democracy in action. It is the antithesis of a fair go. The Liberals never accepted Whitlam’s mandate to govern, in December 1972, and Liberal Senate Opposition leader, Reg Withers (WA), later admitted that as early as April 1973 they had decided to force the new government to an early election.

Whitlam, quite rightly, refused to go along with the Liberal plan that would see him forced to early elections all the time. His attitude hardened after after two Labor senators (caused by death and retirement, respectively) were replaced with non-Labor senators by conservative State Premiers, Tom Lewis (NSW)) and Joh Bjelke-Petersen (Qld). It was a clear breach of convention and the 'tainted' Senate numbers would ultimately lead to Whitlam's undoing.
The PM became determined to emulate the British Asquith Government of 1911 in establishing the supremacy of lower house over the upper house, by ensuring that money bills could not be rejected by the upper chamber.

More importantly if conservatives want an example of how the Queen’s representative acted in an appropriate manner than they need to look no further than how Sir Phillip Game sacked NSW premier Jack Lang, on 13 May 1932.

Game kept Lang fully informed, by letters, of what would happen if he did not desist from debt repudiation, to British bondholders during the Great Depression. When Lang refused to heed the advice Game dismissed Lang.

(In a quirk of history both sacked leaders died aged 98, Lang only a few weeks before Whitlam was sacked).

This writer has never agreed with Whitlam’s famous comment after being sacked, “the bastard has done a Game on us.” That is not fair to Game who acted overtly and honorably, unlike the covert, dishonourable way Kerr used the reserve powers on 11/11/75.

Whitlam was only days away from a stunning triumph when Kerr sacked him - and it must be remembered that supply (money) had not run out on November11.

The Senate was deferring the budget at that stage rather than rejecting it outright.

The public were fed up and wanted the government to be allowed to govern until the next election, due by May 1977, although because of the Senate’s action Whitlam was planning a half senate election only.

The principled, long forgotten Tasmanian Liberal senator, Eric Bessell (1923-79), who had entered the Senate in 1974, came to national attention on the 25 October 1975. During the crisis he gave an interview on ABC television and while he favoured his side’s tactics of deferring supply in the hope of forcing an election he made it clear he would not vote for outright rejection. He named four other Liberal senators, Martin, Missen, Don Jessop and Peter Baume as being concerned with blocking supply outright.

Whitlam, of course, was quoting Bessell with relish during the weeks of drama, and Kerr really only needed to leave it a few more days to the Liberal party room to sort out the political crisis.

Fraser, typically, never forgave Bessell and ensured that the Tasmanian was placed in the unwinnable sixth position on the Liberal Senate ticket at the Federal election on 13 December 1975. His short career was over.  

    

Kerr had compounded his error by taking secret advice from the then Chief Justice, Sir Garfield Barwick, a former Liberal Attorney General; and by refusing to see the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Gordon Scholes, who sought an interview with the GG to inform him that the House had supported a vote of no-confidence in Fraser as the newly minted ‘Kerrtaker’ PM. Kerr ignored The Speaker’s request and sent his secretary to dissolve the Parliament.

It is interesting to note that Whitlam never thought of “doing a Smith” on Kerr.

(By “doing a Smith,” I am referring to the attempted sacking of Rhodesian PM, Ian Smith, by the Governor, Sir Humphrey Gibbs, exactly 10 years earlier, Remembrance Day 1965), after Smith had declared independence unilaterally from Britain (UDI). Instead Smith refused to be dismissed and continued as PM for another 14 years!

When this writer, put that question to Whitlam, at a Dymock’s literary dinner at, would you believe, Fraser’s Restaurant, in Kings Park, WA (February 2006), Whitlam replied in the negative. The constitutional lawyer in him never contemplated such an action.

Therein is the rich irony. Whitlam, a republican and constitutional lawyer accepted his dismissal from the GG while Smith, an arch-royalist, put his Queen’s representative under house arrest!

Kerr was well named. Apart from the dismissal of an elected government he is remembered only for being as ‘drunk as a skunk’ at the 1976 Melbourne Cup, where he was substantially heckled, and for being a disgusting old lecher towards Liz Reid (Whitlam’s advisor on women’s interests).

Fraser, despite his massive win managed to be responsible for the formation of the Australian Democrats caused by a disaffected and over looked MP, Don Chipp, no longer being able to work with him. Chipp led the Democrats successfully in the Senate and the party lasted for 31 years.

In the ‘gush’ written on Fraser perhaps the most nauseating was on him as the fearless fighter against Apartheid.

In fact, Fraser was a crass opportunist on South Africa and did little to help a society that was changing throughout the 1980s under the National Party government. He was poorly regarded by the South Africans and major players like Reagan and Thatcher.

Under PW Botha’s Government (1978-89) South Africa was light years removed from the earlier National Party governments of Malan, Strijdom and Verwoerd  (1948-66), and even Vorster (1966-78).

Fraser as opposition leader in 1975 had said that reaching out to South Africa was the best way to ensure change. Yet when the RSA started to change, for the better, under PW Botha, Fraser was one of that government’s greatest critics.

Fraser never conceded that the RSA had some real threats to contend with in the 1980s and early 1990s.

As Kim Beazley Snr expostulated, at a United Services Institute seminar, at Swan Barracks, Perth (circa 1990), “what on earth are 55,000 Cuban troops doing in Angola?”  The former senior Whitlam Government minister (and a distinguished Father of the House, of 32 years, at his retirement in 1977), then went on to say the SADF had to contend with that real military threat or face the Cubans marching on to Windhoek in South West Africa, (now Namibia) then under RSA control.

Indeed, SWA had been previously threatened in the first nine days of April 1989 when some 2000 PLAN (Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia) crossed into South African territory. In some vicious fighting 340 of them died. On the SWA side 20 police officers and five soldiers died.

In a radio interview with David Tothill (York WA, 7 April 1989) the South African ambassador told this writer that South Africa was not going to wait to be attacked by armed groups attempting to gain a foothold in their territory.

Never once did Fraser, even when out of office, acknowledge the external problems and real threat, nor the bombing and terror campaigns of the ANC, including the shopping mall Christmas bombings in Amanzimtoti, the Pretoria car bombings, or the ‘necklacing’ (a burning tyre around the neck) of black township officials.

If British PM, Harold MacMillan was famous for his Winds of Change speech in the South African Parliament at Capetown (1960), Fraser was a man who thought, wrongly, such ‘winds’ could favour him gain the Secretary General’s position of the Commonwealth in 1989. Fraser was always the man with an eye for the main chance to benefit himself. He was not about to make any comments against that would offend black leaders.

Unsurprisingly, the African members of the Commonwealth voted for a fellow African, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and the Nigerian won in the proverbial canter.The African lobby had played Fraser like a trout on the hook and that included his murderous ‘mate’ Mugabe. Significantly, neither NZ nor the UK supported Fraser, with Margaret Thatcher clearly regarding Fraser as a lightweight.

He was, and a vindictive one at that. When a white Afrikaner, Kepler Wessels, came from his homeland to play cricket in Australia, eventually wearing the baggy green cap, Fraser snubbed him in disgraceful fashion. At a function for the Australian team Fraser went down the line shaking hands with various players. When he got to Wessels turned and simply walked away infuriating the Australian players. Wessels later returned to the RSA and became their Test captain against Australia in the resumption tests of 1993-4.He was an ornament to both nations and the return of the ‘Veld Prodigals’ had been long overdue after 23 years in isolation. (It was particularly appreciated by this writer who saw the Springboks of 1970 demolish Australia 4-0 in four tests and then went back in 1994, to see the return bout, where honours were shared by the Proteas and Oz).

Treating sportsmen and women with contempt came naturally to Fraser. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as PM, he decided a stand had to be taken. Of course that ‘stand’ did not include the curtailing of trade with the USSR and wool exports and sales continued, including from his Nareen property.

Instead Fraser felt it necessary to make Australian Olympians maintain his rage. Fortunately the bully boy did not get his way although certain team sports-equestrian, hockey, rowing and shooting- did not represent Australia. Most sportsmen only get one chance at an Olympics and Fraser put paid to some of our finest in the sports mentioned.

On Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Fraser, along with British politicians, notably Lord Carrington and Lord Soames, deserves absolute contempt both during his prime ministership and the subsequent years. Mugabe, a racist, murderous thug of the first order, is still in power today and is coming up for 35 years in power next month.

He could have, and should have been prevented contesting the 1980 election because of the massive political intimidation his goons were perpetrating on the electors during the campaign that was supposedly run under British auspices. When Ian Smith (no longer PM) reminded the British Governor, Soames, to do his duty, the latter day ‘Neville Chamberlain,’ replied that his boss (Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington) said that the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) would not allow it!

Soames told Smith, “The standards that you and I were brought up to believe in are no longer part of this world.” Precisely, one could add, because gutless appeasers like Carrington, Soames and Fraser were not prepared to stand up for such principles.

Since 2000, Mugabe has destroyed commercial farming in Zimbabwe with his criminal land grabs to assist himself and his cronies to land owned by whites.

One might have thought that Fraser, a farmer himself, would have some sympathy for the beleaguered farmers being murdered, bashed and terrorized by a criminal regime. But the silence from him was deafening apart from a brief article he wrote in 2008, as to why he backed Mugabe. Then he lamely wrote “that it was easy to forget Mugabe’s first 10 years” because of later atrocities.

Oh really? Unlike Fraser, I have not forgotten Mugabe’s first 10 years and they set the standard for the racist thug’s continued rule. In 1982 the new Zimbabwe leader sent his North Korean trained Fifth Brigade to deal with dissidents in Matabeleland. Some 20,000 Ndebele civilians were murdered simply because they supported the ZAPU party of Joshua Nkomo in the elections of 1980.Nkomo fled to London.

On the home front, those of us who were young home buyers under his government still remember the home interest rates that climbed to 13.5 per cent –far higher than under Whitlam- and the unemployment rate climbing to 10 per cent in 1983, double that of the Whitlam Government.

Big Mal was known as ‘Malicious,’ by such ungrateful ‘malcontents’ not impressed with the grate man’s economic policies (and the spelling of grate, in the context,  is correct).

Unlike Hawke and Keating he lacked the political courage to change the economy even though for most of his near eight year rule he enjoyed a majority in both chambers of the Federal Parliament- a rarity.

There is so much more that could be added to this man’s tawdry record, including losing his trousers in Memphis. It really is not safe for ex-Prime Ministers to hang around with American hookers!

In retirement Fraser, unlike other ex-prime ministers, who generally do not say much, felt that we all still needed to hear from him.

By the end of his life Fraser who had entered politics as a Right wing Conservative had not only deserted the party he once led but was to the Left of the Greens. By then he was anti-American and for open borders.

He was tweeting to the end too, (indeed he was the Great Tweet), about how disgraceful Abbott and Morrison had been on immigration policy and how unfair they had been on Gillian Triggs.

In summary Fraser was a nasty, dangerous, arrogant, self-centred narcissist to the end and he put all other political back stabbers in the shade.

 Labor has had some good ones, including ‘Stabber’ Jack Beasley (1931) and ‘Stabber Bill Shorten but they remain rank amateurs next to this bloke.

As a political divider and a wrecker Fraser surpassed even Billy Hughes.

Let us hope that Australia never sees his like again.