Top 10 Interesting Facts about Malcolm Fraser

A 1977 portrait of Malcolm Fraser, Prime Minister of Australia. Photo by National Archives of Australia –Wikimedia commons

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Malcolm Fraser

John Malcolm Fraser (21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia, serving as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia from 1975 to 1983.

Fraser was brought up on his father’s sheep stations and returned to Australia after attending Magdalen College, Oxford, to take over the family property in Victoria’s Western District. Following an initial defeat in 1954, he was elected to the Australian House of Representatives as a member of parliament (MP) for the Wannon division in the 1955 national election. He was 25 at the time, making him one of the youngest members of parliament.

Just after Harold Holt became prime minister in 1966, Fraser was assigned Minister for the Army. Following Holt’s resignation and replacement by John Gorton, Fraser was appointed Minister of Education and Science (1968-1969) and then Minister of Defence (1969-1972). (1969–1971).

In 1971, Fraser stepped down from cabinet and discredited Gorton as “unfit to serve in the wonderful office of prime minister,” prompting Gorton to be replaced by William McMahon. He later returned to his previous education and science portfolio.

1.His university history and how it helped his political career

Fraser attended the prestigious Melbourne Grammar School and Oxford University, where he earned an MA in 1952. He was pre-selected as the Liberal Party’s candidate for the House of Representatives’ Wannon seat in Victoria in 1954, but he lost. He successfully re-contested the seat in 1955 and held it until he resigned from politics.

2.His early life when he became a politician

Fraser returned to Australia in the middle of 1952. He regularly attended Young Liberals meetings in Hamilton and became familiar with a number of local party leaders.

In November 1953, at the age of 23, Fraser won the Liberal candidate selection for the Division of Wannon, which included most of Victoria’s Western District. Dan Mackinnon, the preceding Liberal member, was defeated in 1951 and transferred to a new electorate.

Magnus Cormack, who had recently lost his Senate seat, was predicted to replace him. Fraser had entered the race to raise his profile for future candidacies, but he ran a strong campaign and won by a narrow margin.

3.Malcolm had a show that focused on so many different topics that was associated with his political career

Malcolm Fraser & Robert Muldoon. Photo by Archives New Zealand –Wikimedia commons

In January 1954, he broadcast the first of a weekly series titled One Australia on 3HA Hamilton and 3YB Warrnambool. His program, which consisted of a 15-minute pre-recorded monologue, covered a diverse range of subjects and was frequently reposted in newspapers. It lasted until his retirement from politics in 1983, and it helped him build a sizable personal following among his constituents.

In the 1954 election, Fraser was defeated by sitting Labor member Don McLeod by only 17 votes (out of over 37,000 cast). However, he ran again in the early 1955 election after a restructuring rendered Wannon nominally Liberal. McLeod retired after concluding that the reconfigured Wannon was impossible to win.

These variables, plus the Labor Party split in 1955, gave Fraser a decisive win.

4.Malcolm’s professional political journey from the age of 24!

He was the youngest member of Parliament at the age of 24, and his patron was Prime Minister Sir Robert Gordon Menzies. Even so, due to his age, his backbench journey was lengthy.

He represented on various government advisory boards however he was not appointed as a minister only after Menzies stepped down. In 1966, Menzies’ successor, Harold Holt, appointed Fraser as Minister for the Army, where he evolved into a vocal proponent of the Vietnam War, a proponent of conscription, and a divisive figure. His proclivity for “risk taking” became clear.

Fraser received the Ministry of Education and Science under Prime Minister John H. Gorton and fought for increased federal aid to education.

After the the 1969 election, in which the Liberals retained power but suffered their first significant electoral defeat in eight years, Fraser was transferred to the Ministry of Defense, where he continued to advocate for hawkish policy.

5.He was an advocate against racism and racial segregation

A 1977 portrait of Malcolm Fraser, Prime Minister of Australia. Photo by National Archives of Australia –Wikimedia commons

Mr Fraser was also a staunch opponent of apartheid, helping to draft the 1977 Gleneagles Agreement, which required South Africa to end discrimination in order to participate in the Commonwealth Games.

In 1981, he refused to permit a plane carrying the Springbok rugby team to refuel in Australia on its way to a tour of New Zealand. He was also one of the first world leaders to pay Nelson Mandela a visit in prison, and he later actively campaigned the US Congress to impose sanctions on South Africa while racial segregation was still in place.

All through his tenure as Prime Minister, Mr Fraser was a staunch opponent of white minority rule in Rhodesia, and he was influential in convincing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to discard an internal Zimbabwe-Rhodesia settlement but instead lead the way for an independent Zimbabwe.

After leaving parliament, he took on a variety of prominent positions in the fight against racial discrimination and racial segregation, such as leading the Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons Against Apartheid in South Africa.

6.Fraser’s time as an administrator and what he did for the nation

The Fraser administration was extremely active. It was not a traditional conservative government, and yet even with budget cuts, it sought so much service to the public. Fraser also revised the “Westminster” system of government, concentrating more power in the hands of the prime minister through numerous means, lowering the independence of both his senior public servants and his own party colleagues.

7.His personal life and family

Fraser married Tamara “Tamie” Beggs, who was roughly six years his younger than him, on December 9, 1956. They’d met at a New Year’s Eve party and connected over shared personal experiences and political beliefs. The couple had four children: Mark (born in 1958), Angela (born in 1959), Hugh (born in 1963), and Phoebe (born in 1964). (b. 1966).

Tamie regularly helped her husband in political campaign, and her outgoing personality was thought to accommodate his more introverted and reserved personality. She advised him on the majority of important decisions throughout his career, and he later stated that “if she had been prime minister in 1983, we would have won.”

8.Fraser was actively engaged in political matters even after retirement

Malcolm Fraser & Robert Muldoon. Photo by Archives New Zealand –Wikimedia commons

Fraser stepped down to ‘Nareen’ after leaving parliament however, continued to stay engaged in public matters.

In 1985, he was selected to be a member of an international group of “eminent persons” dedicated to ending apartheid in South Africa through conversations. (Since entering parliament, Fraser had been a vocal opponent of apartheid.)

Later in his career, he worked as a political columnist for The Australian newspaper. Fraser was the chairman of Care Australia, an international relief organization with a focus on providing assistance to impoverished African nations, from 1987 to 2002.

Fraser’s involvement to the progress of human rights in Australia and around the world was recognized in 2000 when he received Australia’s Human Rights special award.

9.He was an atheist but still respects all religions

Fraser enrolled to Anglican schools despite the fact that his parents were Presbyterian. He was an atheist at university, once writing that “the idea that God exists is nonsense.” His beliefs, even so, were less convincing over time and leaned toward agnosticism.

Throughout his political career, he referred to himself as a Christian on occasion, such as in a 1975 interview with The Catholic Weekly. Margaret Simons, Fraser’s co-author, thought he was “not religious, but thinks religion is a significant measure.”

“I would probably like to be less rational and, you know, really able to believe in a higher power, whether it is Allah, or the Christian god, or a different – but I think I explored too much philosophy,” he said in a 2010 interview with her.

10.How Fraser impacted Australia’s political state before his death

Fraser died on March 20, 2015, at the age of 84, following a short sickness. An obituary stated that as his retirement years progressed, there was “deep respect of the productive and beneficial essence of his post-prime ministerial involvement.” Fraser died five months after his forerunner and political opponent, Gough Whitlam.

When Fraser died, his 1983 arch enemy and quite often angry opponent Bob Hawke applauded him as a “extremely substantial leader in the history of Australian politics” who, in his post-Prime Ministerial years, “became an example in the improvement of human rights concerns in all ways,” praised him for being “incredibly compassionate and accommodating to refugees from Indochina,” and came to the realization that Fraser had “shifted so far to the left that he was nearly out of sight.”

Andrew Peacock, who questioned Fraser for the Liberal leadership and later succeeded him, stated that he had “a profound admiration and pleasant memories of the first five years of the Fraser Government… I disagreed with him later on but throughout that timeframe in the 1970s he was a very efficient Prime Minister,” and expressed regret that “amidst all my discussions with him later on I am full of love and appreciation for his endeavours on China.”

On March 27, 2015, Fraser was given a state funeral at Scots’ Church in Melbourne. His ashes are laid to rest in Melbourne General Cemetery’s Prime Ministers Garden.

In June 2018, he was honored with the naming of the Fraser Australian Electoral Division in Melbourne’s inner north-western suburbs.