This man is the best of Australia’s political landscape 10 Oct 201110 Oct 2011 I used to hate him, but I have come to the realisation that Malcolm Fraser is the very best Prime Minister, politician and senior statesman Australia has produced in my lifetime. He criticises his own party for its demagoguery and race the the lowest common denominator, and defends the rights of the lowly. He is the most socially progressive senior political figure (including the Greens, who have defended censorship and state controls) in Australia today. Here’s an example, discussing the roles of public servants and their motives: It is a question of integrity, it is a question of honour, it is a question of people being there for the sense of public service and not there for the sense of personal power. Go read the entire interview at The Conversation; it rightly diagnoses all the failures of the Australian polity for the past thirty years, and in particular the “sticky fingers” of politicians like John Dawkins who messed with universities in the early 80s and Gerry Hand who demonised refugees. Australian stuff Politics
Censorship Do not pity progessives 17 Sep 2010 From an article at Truthdig entitled “Do not pity the Democrats” by Chris Hedges, this opening paragraph: There are no longer any major institutions in American society, including the press, the educational system, the financial sector, labor unions, the arts, religious institutions and our dysfunctional political parties, which can be… Read More
Accommodationism How to argue with silly thing believers 30 Jan 201420 Feb 2014 [Apologies this took a while; I’ve been rather sick] So, given all this [Why believers believe silly things, why they believe the particular silly things they do, and the developmental hypothesis of belief acquisition], how can you change a believer’s mind? It is tempting to say that you cannot, or… Read More
History Rovian dialogue 3 Nov 200818 Sep 2017 I’ve had this on my office door for four years now. Read More
I think that I have gone through something like the same change of mind when it comes to Frazer. The additional factor in my case being that he was the first Aussie PM I knew anything about as I arrived in the country in early 82. So I had to learn about the Whitlam fiasco from history and did not have that determining my early views of him. Frazer’s commentaries make you painfully aware of the ways in which the Australian political scene has changed for the worse.
I see nothing new here, just another example of an old pattern in which politicians magically become socially responsible in their outlook after they’ve been retired for a while and nothing they say actually matters any more. Disclaimer: I wasn’t around in the Fraser era. I was on the other side of the world, behaving like a preschooler.
That doesn’t make him the best PM we’ve ever had, just (maybe) the best ex-PM. Whitlam remains the best PM we’ve had, despite his flaws.
It’s a matter of a pinion, as Daedelus said to Icarus. I used to be a great supporter of Whitlam, but in retrospect I can only see that he really was harming Australian government the way Fraser said. Some of the things he did – especially withdrawing from Vietnam and permitting no fault divorce – we excellent, but they are not enough to make him the best PM. Fraser was an infrastructure builder who passed laws that protected the environment, refugees, and education from both political interference and exploitation by business. I think that had Fraser been PM through 72-75 he would have brought in those changes too.
“Don’t it always go show, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone?” I came to Australia from England in ’72 when the Whitlam era began and was immediately dismayed by the “it’s time” mentality, the huge chip on Whitlam’s shoulder and the fundamental lack of politicians with integrity. Fraser was, and remains, the exception that proves the rule.