Paul Keating:
The death of Malcolm Fraser underwrites a great loss to Australia.
Notwithstanding a controversial prime ministership, in later years he harboured one abiding and important idea about Australia – its need and its right to be a strategically independent country.
He detested what he saw as our strategic subservience to the United States and our willingness to be easily led from the path of a truly independent foreign policy.
His public life also enshrined other important principles: no truck with race or colour and no tolerance for whispered notions of exclusivity tinged by race. These principles applied throughout his political life.
The constitutional crisis he created in 1975 re-wrote the rule book of Australian public life, amongst other things, reinforcing the power of the Senate. A legacy we still live with today.
He made peace with Gough Whitlam – I would like to think had he had his time over, he would have let the 1974 parliament run its course. The great pity for him of the budget crisis of 1975 was that it de-legitimised his government, at its inception, and with it, much of the value he otherwise brought to public life.
Nevertheless, many will appreciate the gestures which came rather nobly from his political spirit – the passage of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act, his compassion for refugees, the creation of SBS, along with many other clear-sighted reforms. He was particularly committed to the rights and freedom of individuals – un-suborned by the power of the state.
I always thought Malcolm would be around a lot longer. I must say, I wished he had been.
