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Good Riddance Malcolm Fraser

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Calliope

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This sanctimonious old goat is no loss to the Liberal Party. He has certainly leaned more to the socialist left since he chummed up with Gough Whitlam, but he was never a Conservative.

His main claims to fame are;

. Losing his trousers during a night out on the tiles in Memphis USA.

. Being one of Robert Mugabe's strongest supporters. Mubabe has fond memories of him;

"I got enchanted by [Fraser], we became friends, personal friends ... he's really motivated by a liberal philosophy."
 
Hmmm. he did a fantastic job with Vietnamese refugees during and after the war
 

Agree. One of the worst Labor Prime Ministers we've ever had... just in behind Gough and Krudd.
 
We live in a very different world to that when Fraser came to politics. He had his farm near to ours and my Father new him well. He was then regarded as very conservative as most adult people then having just come out of the great depression were bitter and very left wing. The controlling factor in the country to some degree was religion, its all a bigger story than can be told here.

I think few people are able to cross the divide and clearly understand the culture and social context of other periods in history and in particular in todays world where there seems no time or desire to study it. We seem to be just arm chair critics of everything that varies from our own little worlds.

Fraser in his time did a lot to make this country of ours great and though his politics varied from mine, I have repect for his commitment to help others, he always did that, in an unselfish way. It is a shame we seem to have few at the political level doing that today.

This is a bad thread and an insult to reasonable intelligence.
 
Explod for once I agree with you . Its been a long sad gap between true liberal leaders rather than conservative.
 
Trembling Hand said:
Explod for once I agree with you . Its been a long sad gap between true liberal leaders rather than conservative.
Click to expand...
A liberal political party would have my vote for sure.

But I'll never vote conservative which is what the so-called "Liberal" party has become in recent times.

If an election were held tomorrow then:

Liberal - won't vote for them as they seem to have too many links to the Church and general conservatism. They're not "liberal" by any stretch of the imagination. A bunch of right-wing religious extremists. Financially, they'll just sell everything off as a means of hiding the true reality of running a deficit so they aren't really that much good there either.

Labor - don't like them either as they seem determined to send the whole country broke. A bunch of socialists who will end up hurting most those whom they supposedly represent - ordinary working Australians.

Greens - never agreed with many of their major ideas but at least they do what they claim (even though I'd rather they didn't...). Financially, they'd be hard pressed to be any worse than Labor - they'd probably still blow the money, but at least we'd have something of lasting value (eg public transport etc) to show for it rather than spending it on unused assembly halls and plasma TV's.

It's sad to realise that there is really no option to vote for any significant political party that isn't at one extreme or the other and which would actually work for the advancement of Australia as a whole. Very, very sad.
 
Perhaps you could run for PM, Smurf?
 

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probably the ONLY political comment posted in ASF ive ever agreed with. while not every decision was the correct one, on balance most economic & social policy decisions were the right ones for the time. you knew what you were getting, and the reasons why.

in later life probably the most respected 'former prime minister' weve had post war, if not ever.
 
I wasn't living in Australia when Mr Fraser was PM. Since I've been here I'm constantly surprised that he came from the Right of the political field as he always sounds like a socialist.

One thing that has always puzzled me: is he Australian born and educated?
Where does the 'upper class' accent come from?

I reckon there should be a law that decrees for ex Prime Ministers to have access to their extremely generous super benefits, they must agree to never express their opinion in public ever again.
I can't think of much that's more irrelevant than has been PM's pontificating about current events.
But I might have to make an exception for Paul Keating who retains his acid tongue and acerbic insights.
 
Julia he grew up in Victoria on farms. Went to Oxford and studied politics, Economics & philosophy.

I'm half way through reading his biography. Enjoying it very much.

And I strongly disagree with your staying quite comment. We have an absolute barren landscape when it comes to discussion in this country. Look at what its lead us to. Spin, spin and more two party spin. We need more voices not fewer. IMO.
 
Fraser may ,or may not have been a better Prime Minister than his party has thrown up since his departure

BUT ,I for one will never forgive his connivance with the Governor General to oust a democratically elected government in 1975.

It was the most shameful act in our political history and destroyed a lot of faith in the political system

He will remain Kerr's Cur
 

The accent of Fraser was well know to me as a child and came from the founding colonial families. In particular teachers at Longranong (spelling?)Agricultural College and Glenormiston College in south west Victoria, exclusively boys and dominated from (then) right wing Liberal and Country Party families. It is the accent of the upper rural gentry. It varied to some degree from state to state and ole Joh BejokePeterson (spelling?) certainly had a strong version of it too. If you can tune into old speaches of Bob Menzies you will hear it too and compare to the statesmen such as England's Churchill you will find a connection. They were the ruling gentry and very English.

The old style Liberal was a very adroit correct individual who would seriously take concerns of constituents back to Canberra and at times the man from the street saw legislation appear as a result of direct input. Boy we have come a long way and lost a lot.
 
Trembling Hand said:
J

And I strongly disagree with your staying quite comment. We have an absolute barren landscape when it comes to discussion in this country. Look at what its lead us to. Spin, spin and more two party spin. We need more voices not fewer. IMO.
Click to expand...
Um, TH, my remark was essentially tongue in cheek, though I am a bit tired of Mr Fraser's fairly constant commentary on everything.
 

Actually, that was his one redeeming act as a politician, that is to withhold supply from the socialist cretins destroying the country.

Kerr did what he had to do because Whitlam didn't have the balls to.
 
I was at a technical analysis convention in Memphis many years ago and met Fraser. I found him initially on the wetter side of boring but he was not shy about shouting when his time came to buy a round.

He was at some meeting of Commonwealth poobahs, and was quite amusing the longer the night progressed.

gg
 
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