Malcolm Fraser

APRIL 8,1974.

My darling Heather, I write to you at a time when I think I’ve never felt worse about politics. The idiots who now run the Liberal Party will drive me right round the bend. Their last move is to deny supply to the present government in the Senate. Now this is something that shocks me.

These words belong to former prime minister and founder of the Liberal Party, Sir RG (Bob) Menzies.  History of course can provide a longer-run assessment of the bunker-busting tactics used to blast Gough Whitlam from office.

But whatever side you come down on, Malcolm Fraser was vindicated winning three subsequent elections (1975, 1977, and 1980, although not the double-D held just weeks after his 1974 missive under Billy Snedden’s leadership).

Continue reading "Retreat and withdraw: Gillard’s new strategy" »

Last July I had dinner with Malcolm Fraser and a small group in the Karagheusian Room in University House at the University of Melbourne. The dinner was in honour of my brother in law Gerry Simpson, who had just delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture, entitled “War Crimes Trials, Solemnity and the Problem of Evil”.

The evening displayed symbols of ancient, privileged University traditions that clash with contemporary political life. Waiters served us pre-Master Chef dishes on good china, surrounded by walnut antique furniture from Paris and a Brueghel III oil painting peered down on us through the centuries. Mr Fraser was relaxed and comfortable.

Our conversations turned to climate change, of course. I said I thought the legal profession should do more to litigate against polluters and regulators. I understand that there is no climate law under which to run cases, but if the planet is burning, that is enough of a smoking gun for this bush lawyer.

Continue reading "Dinner with Malcolm, and how the Libs can regroup" »

It has not been a good morning for the Liberal Party.

It has been revealed Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser quit the party last December in disgust after it was placed under the new management of Tony Abbott.

Current deputy leader and shadow foreign affairs Minister Julie Bishop continues her comedy stylings by first claiming that Australia has also been guilty of faking passports, and then taking it back. Either way she stuffed up big time, and the two events have combined to aid Labor in pelting the Opposition with the tag that the Coalition are a pack of reckless ultra conservatives.

Continue reading "Fraser could take Bishop with him on the way out" »

History looks inevitable because we’ve lived it;  we think it happened that way because it had to happen that way.

But history is really a series of hinge points, choices taken and not taken, each of which could have changed the future a little. Even the most insignificant can make a massive difference.

Everyone knows, for instance, that the First World War was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Fedinand at Sarajevo.  What most people forget is that the killing only happened after the assassination attempt proper had failed; and that the gunman Gavrilo Princip only got his chance on his way home, because the Archduke’s driver took a wrong turn and stalled the car.

Continue reading "The chance conversation that helped Thatcher win her war" »

In an extraordinary attack on the memory of the late Governor-General Sir John Kerr, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser claims the Governor-General telephoned him on the morning of 11 November 1975 before the then Prime Minister EG Whitlam saw the Governor-General to seek an early half Senate election.

The states were unlikely to offer their necessary co-operation in holding an early half Senate election and in any event the new senators would not take office for eight months. The Governor–General could not see this as a solution to the Senate’s withholding of of supply to the government.

Accordingly, he dismissed Mr. Whitlam on the ancient principle that no government may rule without supply being granted by Parliament. Shortly afterwards, the Governor-General commissioned the Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister pending an election on 10 December.

Continue reading "Fraser’s late swipe at a man unable to defend himself" »