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Message started by Greens_Win on Mar 20th, 2015 at 8:58am

Title: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Greens_Win on Mar 20th, 2015 at 8:58am
Passed away today after a short illness.

Condolences to his family.




Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser dead at 84

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has died.

Mr Fraser was prime minister from 1975 to 1983.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/former-prime-minister-malcolm-fraser-dead-at-84-20150319-1m3jm6.html

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Greens_Win on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:03am
JOHN MALCOLM FRASER, AC

POLITICIAN

21-5-1930 — 20-3-2015

No Australian politician became Prime Minister in more controversial circumstances than Malcolm Fraser, whose name will be forever associated with the dismissal of the Whitlam government, and no prime minister's accession to power has been more hotly debated ever since. Certainly, few political events convulsed the nation as that did.

Yet, however shocked and outraged people were at the time, at the subsequent election, just a few weeks later, on December 13, 1975, the electorate ignored Whitlam's appeal to "maintain the rage", and confirmed Fraser in office with the largest majority in Australian history.

From being  opposition leader, Fraser, who has died aged 84, won his way to The Lodge by blocking Supply and creating a House of Representatives-Senate deadlock, which Governor-General Sir John Kerr broke by dismissing the Whitlam Labor government and appointing Fraser as caretaker prime minister until an election was held.

But  Fraser's seven years in control of the Treasury benches were dogged by turbulence, contention and a difficult and intractable economic situation. Even so, he won three elections and was the Liberal Party's longest serving prime minister after Menzies until John Howard surpassed that record.

He revealed himself to be one of the Liberal Party's most progressive leaders. Yet after his defeat by Labor's rising star, Bob Hawke, at the March, 1983 election, he was disparaged and cast into the wilderness for nearly a decade. Even his own party kept its distance. When he offered himself as the Liberal Party's federal president in 1987, he withdrew when soundings indicated clearly that party preference was for businessman John Elliott. His role in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government still rankled, even among some Liberals. He agin withdrew in 1993 when Tony Staley became a candidate. In some eyes, Fraser's reputation also was still smudged by his resignation as defence minister in 1971 — an act that led to the downfall of his leader and Prime Minister, John Gorton.

He had precipitated that crisis by charging that Gorton had been disloyal to a senior minister (himself) and was not fit to hold office. Added to that was his move to topple Billy Snedden as  opposition leader. He failed in his first attempt, but succeeded in his second bid on March 21, 1975, when he won a party-room ballot by 37 votes to 27.

All these events left a mark. Perhaps more so, because he was never a popular figure, though respected for his strength and political authority. So he was politically excommunicated, dashing his hopes of fulfilling an elder statesman role in Australia. Full public rehabilitation did not come for him until  the Liberal Party decided to bring him in from the cold in June 2000 and bestow the party's highest honour, life membership. Even John Howard, whom Fraser had criticised savagely a week earlier, was prepared to be magnanimous, declaring him to have been a "great Liberal leader". Howard's praise for his former leader stopped there.

Even though Fraser went on to win public support for his strong anti-Howard stand on humanitarian issues and other social causes, Howard never publicly criticised Fraser. That restraint probably stemmed from the fact that when he became prime minister, Howard was concerned about the way Fraser had been treated. One of his first actions was to offer Fraser a diplomatic appointment, but it didn't suit the former prime minister's lifestyle and commitment at that time.

The 1990s also saw a reconciliation between Whitlam and Fraser. In a speech paying tribute to Fraser's strong anti-Howard stand on humanitarian issues, Whitlam said: "Malcolm Fraser has now replaced me as Public Enemy Number One in the demonology of the Australian right wing. I must say I am much more relaxed about being supplanted by Malcolm Fraser for a second time than I was the first time".

Fraser won respect for seeking to use his post-PM years constructively. Much of that respect emanated from his role in establishing the CARE organisation in Australia, thus enabling him to make a major impact on overseas aid, both through the Australian arm and the worldwide body, CARE International; he led both at different stages. He was also outspoken on affairs of the day, ranging from media ownership, the rights of asylum seekers and their detention, the treatment of Aborigines to the role of the High Court, to name  a few.

Fraser faced a tough task after winning the 1975 election with a mandate to curb the excesses of the Whitlam years, restore order to the economy, confidence to investors and sound government. To do this, he set about slashing public-sector expenditure, reducing the tax burden and initiating a drive to beat inflation. But the economic recovery he sought eluded him. It foundered on unemployment, demands for higher wages and developing globalisation. The challenge of globalisation demanded deregulation, whereas Fraser, ever the traditionalist, put his faith in regulation. He also failed to take the opportunity to reform the industrial system.

Nevertheless, he chalked up significant achievements in other areas of government. He championed multiculturalism; revived Australia's flagging immigration program, accepted thousands of Vietnamese boat people as refugees and accepted by regular refugee entry more than 50,000 others; extended native land title rights and appointed three particularly se

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Greens_Win on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:05am
three particularly sensitive Aboriginal Affairs ministers in Fred Chaney, Ian Viner and Peter Baume.

In foreign relations, he strengthened Australia as a middle power able to punch well above its diplomatic weight, and for most of his years as prime minister, he was the leading figure in the Commonwealth of nations.  He played a prominent part in negotiations that saw Zimbabwe become an independent nation, staring down British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the process.  However, he missed out on the Commonwealth secretary-generalship because then Prime Minister Hawke was heavy handed in pressing Fraser's nomination and because many saw it as "Africa's turn".

On other fronts, where Whitlam had failed, Fraser negotiated a practical border arrangement between Australia and Papua New Guinea. He also supported environmental undertakings, reformed the family support system, established the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), and banned whaling around the Australian coast.

After his retirement Fraser admitted "the major mistake we made was not to go for full industrial power for the Commonwealth in 1976". A radical approach was needed and Fraser never took it. He also felt he made a mistake with the timing of the 1983 election by setting it in March rather than later in the year. A further error of judgement, he  admitted,  was his decision to quit politics immediately after the 1983 poll. If he had stayed on for a time, he believed the Liberals might not have spent a decade locked in a destructive leadership struggle between Howard and Peacock.

As Prime Minister he was in the Menzies mould.  His philosophy in politics was to "stay totally in control all the time".  He ran cabinet meetings on the basis of "consensus by exhaustion". He had complete command over the machinery of government, was a stickler for due process, while his ability to master briefs and his cross-portfolio knowledge was said to be "awesome".

Tony Eggleton, who worked closely with Fraser as director of the Liberal Party's Federal Secretariat and was a political adviser,  has a vivid recollection of Fraser's determination, which could be translated into bloody-mindedness. "I still smile", he said, "when I remember Big Mal striding across the ballroom at the Savoy Hotel in London, convinced that he was taking a short cut to his suite. Despite the protestations of personal and hotel staff, Malcolm headed for a door and disappeared into the broom cupboard to an accompanying clatter of mops and buckets. Despite some loss of dignity, he managed to crack a smile".

Fraser was a formidable and aggressive politician, a patrician with a high sense of public duty, ambitious for himself and his country.  He was also his own man, uncompromising but compassionate. He did not dodge controversy and didn't place great store on personal popularity. Though often described as a "poor communicator", he could, and did, make effective public speeches. With his wooden, Easter Island like face, he was shy and uneasy with people at a personal level and had no small talk at social occasions. His tendency to be "a loner" was noted during his school days and undoubtedly emanated from his early childhood.

Fraser was born in Melbourne  into a wealthy Victorian pastoral family with a background in politics. His grandfather, Sir Simon, whom he came to greatly admire, had served in the Victorian Parliament and then as a senator in the first Commonwealth Parliament.

His early childhood was spent on his parents' 11,000-hectare grazing property, "Balpool-Nyang" on the banks of the Edward River, near Moulamein in the NSW southern Riverina.  After his only sibling, his sister Lorri, went away to boarding school, Malcolm was very much on his own. The only other child nearby was the rabbiter's daughter, with whom he played occasionally.

In 1940, he was plucked from that environment, where he had developed a robust self-sufficiency, to board at Tudor House on the outskirts of Moss Vale in the NSW southern highlands. He flourished there both academically and at sport until the end of 1943. Then it was Melbourne Grammar in 1944, after his parents sold "Balpool" and moved to "Nareen" in Victoria's western district.

Fraser disliked the atmosphere at Melbourne Grammar, which he found repressive. Then it was on to Oxford and Magdalen College, where he took the modern greats tripos — philosophy, politics and economics, rather than law, which his father had done. He struggled with the economic component of his degree, but finished with a third — not a bad result.

Fraser developed an interest in politics at Oxford, and not long after he returned to Australia in 1952, he joined the Liberal Party while working with his father on "Nareen" until the opportunity came for pre-selection for the seat of Wannon.  He eventually won in 1955, and in the following December he married Tamara (Tamie) Beggs, daughter of a grazier from Willaura, near the Victorian town of Ararat.

An elegant and engaging woman with her social ease and charm, Tamie turned out to be Fraser's best political asset. She supplied the touch with people that her husband lacked. Soon after they married, Fraser became one of the first MPs to set up home in Canberra. The Fasers moved into rented accommodation, which they occupied during parliamentary sittings.

When he took his seat in Parliament, Fraser, at 25, was the House of Representatives' youngest member, but he had to wait 11 years before advancement

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Greens_Win on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:06am
came his way. He was frustrated and puzzled when people such as Billy Snedden and Peter  Howson, who had also entered Parliament in the same year that he did became, ministers ahead of him. However, his chance came with Harold Holt in 1966 as minister for the army. He handled the portfolio with flair and competence during the testing Vietnam war, before becoming minister for education and science 1968-69, then minister for defence 1969-71. He served again in education and science under McMahon until the Coalition lost the 1972 election to Labor.

Fraser left his mark in each portfolio, but particularly defence, where he had a strong rapport with the departmental head, Arthur Tange.  The fruit of their cooperation came with the Tange Report of 1973,  which was adopted by the Whitlam Government  and led to the abolition of single service departments;  their responsibilities merged under a single Defence Department. He also initiated planning for what became the Australian Defence Force Academy and was a strong advocate of forward defence.

Fraser was prepared to sacrifice ministerial rank by moving against Gorton.  For a time he pondered whether he had any "future at all in politics" until  McMahon brought him back into the ministry. In so many respects a strong leader, he was a complex man of many contradictions. Doing the right thing was always important for him, yet many of his actions could only been seen as questionable. While demanding personal loyalty from his colleagues, they couldn't always be sure that it would be reciprocated.

His aloofness alienated many within the Liberal fold and beyond. Yet  he had a natural rapport with people of other races. As then senator Fred Chaney once famously remarked, "He doesn't have a racial bone in his body, otherwise I wouldn't work for the bastard".

Fraser's third term in office was not an altogether happy one. It was marked by damaging leaks, reshuffles and forced resignations. Several of the resignations, insisted upon as a matter of principle, were not really necessary, especially those of Senator Reg Withers over impropriety but not illegality, Michael MacKellar and John Moore over a customs issue. But most destabilising of all was the resignation of Andrew Peacock as minister for industrial relations in April 1981.

Earlier, as foreign minister, Peacock had been at odds with Fraser over the government's recognition of Cambodia's Pol Pot regime. Then, having been shifted to the industrial relations portfolio, Peacock, who favoured a more diplomatic approach, took exception to Fraser's confrontationist stance against the 35-hour week and resigned, electing to go to the backbench.

Fraser had always seen Peacock as a potential rival, and relations between the two continued to deteriorate, until Peacock finally made a direct challenge in 1982. But at the subsequent party meeting Fraser convincingly retained the leadership, defeating Peacock 54-27. These ministry upheavals not only rocked the government, projecting an image of instability, they also showed up Fraser's poor management of people.

For decades, Fraser was stalked by his celebrated enjoinder to the Australian people, "Life wasn't meant to be easy". What few people realised was that the quote from George Bernard Shaw's play Methuselah continued "but take courage child, for it can be delightful".

Wherever Fraser's name comes up, so, too, does the  incident in 1986 when he was robbed of his passport, money and trousers in a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Reports, which were greeted with hilarity in Australia, said he had wandered into the hotel lobby wearing a towel and saying he thought he had been drugged. His biographer, Philip Ayres, has suggested that Memphis softened and reduced Fraser: softened the image of the man, reduced the stature of the politician.

It certainly depicted him as more human, as did the emotion he showed when making his speech conceding defeat in the 1983 election — his voice faltered and his eyes became wet.

In retirement,  Fraser also had to deal with the future of his 3500-hectare family property. "Nareen" had been in the family since 1944, but neither of the Frasers two sons, Mark and Hugh, wanted to take on the place. To boost the property's income, the Frasers turned it into a bed and breakfast establishment, while retaining their own privacy. Finally in 1997 they decided to sell and in 1998, and moved to a property at Red Hill, on the Mornington Peninsula.

Many people thought the move would be a wrench,  but he had never felt for "Nareen" as he did "Balpool", which he loved. So he and Tamie quite happily settled into their new home, which they called "Thurulgoona" after the property in Queensland where Fraser's grandfather had drilled the first bore that inaugurated the artesian well system that was to so benefit Australian agriculture. There, too, among other things, Fraser always found time to practice his wood-turning hobby in which he was quite skilled — another unexpected side of the former prime minister.

As his retirement years progressed, there was greater appreciation of the constructive and positive nature of his post-prime ministerial contribution. His international stature went unquestioned, being enhanced significantly by his determined, and ultimately successful, efforts to secure the release of three CARE Australia aid workers — Steve Pratt, Peter Wallace and Branko Jelen — captured and imprisoned by Serbian forces during the 1999 Kosovo

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Greens_Win on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:06am
crisis. Fraser flew to Belgrade where, in two separate meetings, he argued and negotiated with the then Serbian President, Slobovan Milosovic, for the men to be set free.

There was also a growing respect for his liberal and forthright views on domestic issues. His was the voice that was most often heard when he felt that the government of the day was acting inappropriately at home and abroad. He did not hesitate to register his concerns when, in the context of the terrorist threat, he felt the Howard Government was introducing measures that impinged on basic rights and were a betrayal of Australian principles of a "fair go" and the abrogation of UN conventions.

History may be much kinder to Malcolm Fraser than opinions in contemporary times suggest. In some respects at least, he might well be judged as having contributed as much, if not more, than John Howard.

His wife, Tamie, sons Hugh and Mark, and daughters Angela, Phoebe and their families, survive him.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/a-towering-figure-who-crossed-the-political-divide-20150319-1m3k8t.html

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by greggerypeccary on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:50am

Met him briefly on two occasions.

A genuinely nice, intelligent guy.


Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Svengali on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:20am

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:50am:
Met him briefly on two occasions.

A genuinely nice, intelligent guy.


A great stateman. Makes other liberals look like troglodytes.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Dnarever on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:23am

Svengali wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:20am:

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:50am:
Met him briefly on two occasions.

A genuinely nice, intelligent guy.


A great stateman. Makes other liberals look like troglodytes.


He was probably the Last genuine Liberal PM.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by gandalf on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:53am

Svengali wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:20am:

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:50am:
Met him briefly on two occasions.

A genuinely nice, intelligent guy.


A great stateman. Makes other liberals look like troglodytes.


His post-political moral grandstandings have largely masked what was a pretty extreme and destructive right wing economic agenda while he was PM.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by bogarde73 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:59am
We're all entitled to change our opinions. I changed my opinion of him a long time ago.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Richdude on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:20am

bogarde73 wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:59am:
We're all entitled to change our opinions. I changed my opinion of him a long time ago.


Few Australian PM's barring Chifley and Curtin have had the vision and idealism that Whitlam had for the common good. Fraser killed a better future.
Not forgiven!

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by PZ547 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:20am
.

Night before last, via link on a US forum, I watched Fraser being interviewed about the USS Liberty

Hadn't see it before

His commentary gained my respect - very late in the day as it turns out

Fraser stated unequivocally that Israel had deliberately attacked the Liberty and killed 34 US sailors and wounded several dozen more over a period of hours

The US could have blown Israel out of the sky, he said.  Instead, the US allowed the carnage to continue as a matter of political expediency

If the US had admitted the Israeli attack was deliberate, he said, then it would have been impossible to justify or excuse further support for Israel

Fraser said the US covered it up - a cover-up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vxIvmXupzI&t=360 
Youtube: 'Former Oz PM Malcolm Fraser on USS Liberty'

He ended that segment by remarking that major powers will sacrifice their own like that to protect vital interests

So well done, Fraser, on that score

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by bogarde73 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:23am

Richdude wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:20am:

bogarde73 wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:59am:
We're all entitled to change our opinions. I changed my opinion of him a long time ago.


Few Australian PM's barring Chifley and Curtin have had the vision and idealism that Whitlam had for the common good. Fraser killed a better future.
Not forgiven!


I take the view that that was the only good thing he ever did.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by buzzanddidj on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:31am

Svengali wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:20am:

greggerypeccary wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:50am:
Met him briefly on two occasions.

A genuinely nice, intelligent guy.


A great statesman. Makes other liberals look like troglodytes.





buzzanddidj wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:11am:
I recall Fraser once being asked in an interview, what had caused his "shift to the left" in his later years

Without hesitation he stated - EMPHATICALLY - that his values had never wavered

... but that the Liberal Party, Australia - and the whole world, to an extent - had taken a disturbing "shift to the right"

He was CORRECT

History will be kinder to Fraser in death, than it was in life - as it will Whitlam







ON that note - does anyone have an explanation as to why such things as anti-racism, cultural and religious tolerance - and conservation - are seen as "leftist ideals" ?









.





Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by bogarde73 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 12:16pm
I'm sure an explanation will spew from your mouth in due course buzz, along with why same-sex marriage is desperately needed even though the world has managed to get along "nicely" without it for generations.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by buzzanddidj on Mar 20th, 2015 at 1:20pm

buzzanddidj wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:11am:
Does anyone have an explanation as to why such things as anti-racism, cultural and religious tolerance - and conservation - are seen as "leftist ideals" ?






bogarde73 wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 12:16pm:
I'm sure an explanation will spew from your mouth in due course buzz, along with why same-sex marriage is desperately needed even though the world has managed to get along "nicely" without it for generations.




NO - I'm genuinely MYSTIFIED

You'll have to let me KNOW

Though I've never known how the "supporting the status quo"  argument justifies ANY inequality ?

I'm sure the United States managed to get along "nicely" with a labour system of forced slavery ?

This was NEVER a valid argument in SUPPORT of this WRONG - nor could it ever make it RIGHT

     ( ... in the view of "the left, at least)





Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Happy Lucky on Mar 20th, 2015 at 1:29pm
Thanks for the terrorists Malcom you old pervert.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Gnads on Mar 20th, 2015 at 2:44pm
8 years of increased taxation

& what statesman loses his pants

whilst representing the country overseas

another humanitarian that sat idly by whilst the Indonesians were committing genocide in West Papua.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Redneck on Mar 20th, 2015 at 3:32pm
I guess as we all grow old our attitudes soften.

Hated the man after the Whitlam/ Kerr fiasco.

In recent years I have seen another side of him and his family and decided he had a lot of good in him.

So RIP Mal, St Peter is waiting for you i think despite losing your trousers in questionable circumstances.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by ImSpartacus2 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 3:51pm
...

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by ImSpartacus2 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 3:51pm

Richdude wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:20am:

bogarde73 wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:59am:
We're all entitled to change our opinions. I changed my opinion of him a long time ago.


Few Australian PM's barring Chifley and Curtin have had the vision and idealism that Whitlam had for the common good. Fraser killed a better future.
Not forgiven!

Spot on post Richdude. Unlike gutless Abbott when the Senate wouldn't pass his reforms (and they were real reforms, not the self interested bigger slice of the pie for the rich BS this govt is touting) Whitlam called a Double Dissolution and won but that didn't stop the libs and born to rule Fraser trying on every dirty trick in the book finishing with blocking supply and the coup of 1975. And what did Fraser contribute in the 2 terms he was PM.ZILCH, NADA!!!! But he was true to the principles of the Liberal party; do everything you can to take and hold Government so no one can do anything worthwhile with it. And that's what Fraser did. He almost tore this nation apart so that he could prevent perhaps the greates reformist government this country has ever seen from implementing anymore worthwhile reforms. Not at all sad to see him gone!

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Svengali on Mar 20th, 2015 at 4:04pm

ImSpartacus2 wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 3:51pm:

Richdude wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 11:20am:

bogarde73 wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 10:59am:
We're all entitled to change our opinions. I changed my opinion of him a long time ago.


Few Australian PM's barring Chifley and Curtin have had the vision and idealism that Whitlam had for the common good. Fraser killed a better future.
Not forgiven!

Spot on post Richdude. Unlike gutless Abbott when the Senate wouldn't pass his reforms (and they were real reforms, not the self interested bigger slice of the pie for the rich BS this govt is touting) Whitlam called a Double Dissolution and won but that didn't stop the libs and born to rule Fraser trying on every dirty trick in the book finishing with blocking supply and the coup of 1975. And what did Fraser contribute in the 2 terms he was PM.ZILCH, NADA!!!! But he was true to the principles of the Liberal party; do everything you can to take and hold Government so no one can do anything worthwhile with it. And that's what Fraser did. He almost tore this nation apart so that he could prevent perhaps the greates reformist government this country has ever seen from implementing anymore worthwhile reforms. Not at all sad to see him gone!


Fraser did not act alone. The USA government was fomenting and financing the overthrow of Whitlam. Fraser was just unfortunate to be in leadership at that time. Had he not wanted to obey the masters he would have been displaced by another.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Neferti on Mar 20th, 2015 at 4:21pm
Sorry to hear of Malcolm Fraser's passing.  He was 84 and it was "sudden" apparently.  My first ever vote was for the Liberals in 1975, so I guess, effectively, I did vote for Malcolm as PM.

Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by buzzanddidj on Mar 20th, 2015 at 6:30pm

Redmond Neck wrote on Mar 20th, 2015 at 3:32pm:
I guess as we all grow old our attitudes soften ...



But, as he correctly pointed out ... his attitudes DIDN'T "soften"

The rest of the world "HARDENED"








Title: Re: Malcolm Fraser (1930-2015)
Post by Anthony123 on Mar 20th, 2015 at 9:11pm
I heard on the grape vine that stretch was very Very VERY pissed at Abutthead for not helping the fijians more than we have.

Apparently he had been quizzed by international dignitaries about the lack of offical oz gov. assisstance.

Life wasn't meant to be easy - not sure it is meant to be so hard that you die of shame about your own countrymen and women for their lack of charity and insensitivty.

Appernetly what did it for hime was the contrast between how quick we were to send more troops to war in Iraq as opposed to sending in the troops to help Fiji.

But then thats the high clown Prince Abutthead for you. No sense of propriety and no dignity or humility.

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