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Malcolm Fraser was Australia’s fourth longest serving prime minister who won three elections.  A politician of considerable ability and strength, he was involved in the downfall of Liberal Party prime minister John Gorton and Labor Party prime minister Gough Whitlam. Fraser (1930-2015) entered the House of Representatives at the age of 25 and was regarded as a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. He retired from politics in March 1983 and was soon regarded as a moderate or small “l” Liberal.  Fraser quit the Liberal Party in late 2009. On 11 November 1975, Governor-General Sir John Kerr dismissed the Whitlam Government and appointed Fraser as caretaker prime minister. Debate has continued ever since over Fraser’s role in the Dismissal. In Gerard Henderson’s Malcolm Fraser – A Personal Reflection, he argues that while Fraser was a strong leader in difficult times, he suffered from the fall out of the Dismissal which led Fraser to the left of politics in his later years. On Wednesday 12 November 2025, The Hon Barry O’Farrell launched Malcolm Fraser – A Personal Reflection to which Gerard Henderson gave the following response.

MALCOLM FRASER: A PERSONAL REFLECTION

GERARD HENDERSON

Many thanks to Barry O’Farrell for launching Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection and for his kind comments this evening.

I am pleased to recall that I defended Barry on the day he stepped down as Premier of NSW after an appearance at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). This occurred during a debate on the ABC TV Lateline program on 16 April 2014. I was up against Nine’s Kate McClymont who accused Barry of lying. Ms McClymont – with the support of the presenter Steve Cannane – backed ICAC. I dissented.

When the pro-ICAC Cannane asked the (quite irrelevant) question as to why I had not criticised ICAC when it was investigating the former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid, I responded that I had not been invited onto Lateline for six years. Needless to say it was my last appearance on Lateline. But, surprise, the discussion with Kate McClymont was reported quite fairly in The Guardian Australia. By the way, the Obeid and O’Farrell cases were completely unrelated with respect to their seriousness.

In time, the NSW Supreme Court cleared Barry O’Farrell of the corruption allegation. However, by then, he had exited politics. A regrettable occasion – since he had been a fine premier. So was Nick Greiner – who had been forced to step down by ICAC as premier in June 1992 – only to be cleared subsequently by the NSW Court of Appeal.

* * * *

After Malcolm Fraser became leader of the Liberal Party in March 1975, I was invited along with two others to apply for a position in the Opposition leader’s office. One was Stephen Vaughan, an economist. The other was Petro Georgiou. In short, three individuals were invited to apply for two jobs – we were interviewed separately by Malcolm Fraser.

I knew Petro as a student at Melbourne University in the late 1960s/early 1970s. I was president of the Democratic Labor Party Club. Petro Georgiou had been a member of the far-left Labour Club. Stephen and Petro got the positions. This was a big disappointment at the time – but not for long. It turned out that Kevin Newman, who had been appointed Minister for Repatriation by Malcolm Fraser in December 1975, advertised for a position in his office. I got the job and worked for four years for the Fraser government.

I interviewed Malcolm Fraser for my book Menzies Child: The Liberal Party of Australia. And he addressed The Sydney Institute on 17 July 2006. Also, I spoke to him on a couple of occasions when fact-checking for my newspaper column and we met occasionally at functions. In this book – as in my previous works – I believe in giving those discussed a right to state their views directly, rather than to be subjected to my interpretation of what they said or wrote. So, I have included some detailed quotes from Mr Fraser along with those who knew him or worked with him.

In Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection I have looked at Australia’s fourth longest serving prime minister in three phases.

Fraser the conservative

As a student at the University of Melbourne in the second half of the 1960s and the very early 1970s, I was very impressed with Malcolm Fraser who spoke occasionally on campus. He was one of the very few Liberal Party MPs who were able to defend Australia’s commitment to South Vietnam in its defence of aggression from communist North Vietnam. After the retirement of Robert Menzies in January 1966 – the Liberal leaders were a disappointing lot. None more so than Billy Snedden who became Liberal leader after Labor won the 1972 election.

I strongly supported the move by Liberal Party MP Tony Staley – whom I knew – to depose Snedden and back Fraser. Staley tried without success in late 1974 but succeeded in March 1975. As we all know, Fraser became caretaker prime minister and won the December 1975 election in a landslide. Political conservatives in Australia welcomed Fraser’s victory over Gough Whitlam – he provided political and economic stability after the chaos of the Whitlam government, particularly from mid-1974 until late 1975.

Fraser as Prime Minister

I agree with John Howard that Malcolm Fraser presided over a good government during his first two terms – from late 1975 until early 1980. However, it did not have a clear policy agenda. The problem was that the Coalition’s 1975 election platform promised tax cuts along with spending increases. And the Fraser Government never fully addressed the legacy it inherited from Whitlam. Nevertheless, Fraser ran an efficient government until the economy turned down in early 1980s – Fraser’s response by increasing spending led to an increased deficit. However, to be fair, no one at the time addressed the issue of Australia’s hugely centralised industrial relations system.

Malcolm Fraser after politics

Malcolm Fraser was gracious in defeat and retired from politics. But this didn’t last for long. Initially Fraser said that he had supported economic reform during his government and had been thwarted by Howard. Soon after, Fraser changed his position and criticised Howard for being too supportive of economic rationalism.

At this time, Fraser began to turn on those who, intentionally or otherwise, had advanced his career. In Malcolm Fraser: A Biography published in 1987, for the first time Fraser said that Sir John Kerr had effectively tipped him off that he was going to dismiss Gough Whitlam some hours before the event occurred. This made it possible for the members of the “Kerr’s a Bastard Club” to divert their attention to Kerr and ease off on Fraser. Later, Fraser was to declare that Kerr should have told Whitlam that he intended to dismiss him if he did not advise an election to resolve the blocking of supply. This despite the fact that Whitlam had threatened to dismiss Kerr if he moved to dismiss him.

These various claims came a decade or more after the Dismissal. In time, Fraser resigned from the Liberal Party and welcomed standing ovations at left-wing literary festivals. Not long before his death in 2015, Fraser criticised Sir Robert Menzies. Previously he had been a strong defender of the Liberal Party founder.

Writing about Fraser

In Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs – which he co-authored with the left-wing journalist Margaret Simons – Fraser claimed that he had always been a “liberal” and that he had not changed. He was in denial about his conservative past. Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection was a difficult book to write for one simple reason. In The Political Memoirs, Fraser declared that his memory was “notoriously fallible”. Lots of fact-checking was required.

Ian Hancock is a fine, and mild-mannered historian. In reviewing Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs he wrote:

It’s a pity that Fraser’s memory and Simons’ basic knowledge are so deficient. We all make mistakes but the number of errors in the book beggars belief.

Appendix A in Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection is titled “Malcolm Fraser as a Historian”. It demonstrates the book Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs is littered with errors of the serious kind (i.e. not typos). Including with reference to Don Chipp’s decision to quit the Liberal Party and form the Democrats. And Fraser’s memory of a meeting with George W. Bush which changed Ronald Reagan’s policy on the Falklands War. The latter is a “recollection” of an event that never happened. There is also the claim that Fraser won four elections. He won three.

Conclusion

In Malcolm Fraser: A Personal Reflection, I attempted to be accurate about, and fair with, Malcolm Fraser. He was, without question, a man of considerable ability, with great personal strength and an enormous capacity for work. However, like all of us since The Fall, he was a flawed character.

In my book I quote the comedian Barry Humphries as saying that Fraser is best remembered for his 1971 comment: “Life is not meant to be easy”. But Fraser claimed (falsely) that he had qualified this by stating “But it can be delightful”. This is simply not true as reference to his 1971 Alfred Deakin Lecture makes clear.

As yesterday’s recollection of the Dismissal and the 50^th anniversary of Fraser becoming prime minister attests – in terms of politics Fraser will be best remembered for blocking supply and bringing about the Dismissal. But it is an event which Fraser never wished to dwell on. Sure, Malcolm Fraser was at times a classical liberal but he was also at times a conservative. He did not accept the latter view.

Towards the end of his life, a number of Fraser’s one-time friends and staffers – such as Tony Staley and David Kemp – came to the view that he had lost his way. But not before he had an important impact on Australian politics.