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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
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