88 Facts About Malcolm Fraser

John Malcolm Fraser was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia, from 1975 to 1983, holding office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.

Malcolm Fraser was 25 at the time, making him one of the youngest people ever elected to parliament.

When Harold Holt became prime minister in 1966, Malcolm Fraser was appointed Minister for the Army.

In 1971, Malcolm Fraser resigned from cabinet and denounced Gorton as "unfit to hold the great office of prime minister"; this precipitated the replacement of Gorton with William McMahon.

Malcolm Fraser subsequently returned to his old education and science portfolio.

Malcolm Fraser remains the only Australian prime minister to ascend to the position upon the dismissal of his predecessor.

Malcolm Fraser took a keen interest in foreign affairs as prime minister, and was more active in the international sphere than many of his predecessors.

Malcolm Fraser was a strong supporter of multiculturalism, and during his term in office Australia admitted significant numbers of non-white immigrants for the first time, effectively ending the White Australia policy.

Particularly in his final years in office, Malcolm Fraser came into conflict with the "dry" economic rationalist and fiscal conservative faction of his party.

Malcolm Fraser's government made few major changes to economic policy.

Malcolm Fraser resigned his membership of the Liberal Party in 2009 after the election of Tony Abbott as leader, Fraser having been a critic of the Liberals' policy direction for a number of years.

Malcolm Fraser is generally credited with restoring stability to the country after a series of short-term leaders and has been praised for his commitment to multiculturalism and opposition to apartheid, but the circumstances of his entry to office remains controversial and many have viewed his government as a lost opportunity for economic reform.

John Malcolm Fraser was born in Toorak, Melbourne, Victoria, on 21 May 1930.

Malcolm Fraser was the second of two children born to Una Arnold and John Neville Fraser; his older sister Lorraine had been born in 1928.

Malcolm Fraser's paternal grandfather, Sir Simon Fraser, was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and arrived in Australia in 1853.

Malcolm Fraser made his fortune as a railway contractor, and later acquired significant pastoral holdings, becoming a member of the "squattocracy".

Malcolm Fraser's maternal grandfather, Louis Woolf, was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, and arrived in Australia as a child.

Malcolm Fraser was of Jewish origin, a fact which his grandson did not learn until he was an adult.

Malcolm Fraser had a political background on both sides of his family.

Malcolm Fraser's father served on the Wakool Shire Council, including as president for two years, and was an admirer of Billy Hughes and a friend of Richard Casey.

Simon Malcolm Fraser served in both houses of the colonial Parliament of Victoria, and represented Victoria at several of the constitutional conventions of the 1890s.

Malcolm Fraser eventually become one of the inaugural members of the new federal Senate, serving from 1901 to 1913 as a member of the early conservative parties.

Malcolm Fraser polled only 400 votes across the whole state, and was never again a candidate for public office.

Malcolm Fraser spent most of his early life at Balpool-Nyang, a sheep station of 15,000 hectares on the Edward River near Moulamein, New South Wales.

Malcolm Fraser's father had a law degree from Magdalen College, Oxford, but never practised law and preferred the life of a grazier.

Malcolm Fraser contracted a severe case of pneumonia when he was eight years old, which nearly proved fatal.

Malcolm Fraser was home-schooled until the age of ten, when he was sent to board at Tudor House School in the Southern Highlands.

Malcolm Fraser attended Tudor House from 1940 to 1943, and then completed his secondary education at Melbourne Grammar School from 1944 to 1948 where he was a member of Rusden House.

Malcolm Fraser was devastated by the sale of his childhood home, and regarded the day he found out about it as the worst of his life.

In 1949, Malcolm Fraser moved to England to study at Magdalen College, Oxford, which his father had attended.

Malcolm Fraser read Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating in 1952 with third-class honours.

Malcolm Fraser's college tutor was Harry Weldon, who was a strong influence.

Malcolm Fraser began attending meetings of the Young Liberals in Hamilton, and became acquainted with many of the local party officials.

In November 1953, aged 23, Malcolm Fraser unexpectedly won Liberal preselection for the Division of Wannon, which covered most of Victoria's Western District.

Malcolm Fraser was expected to be succeeded by Magnus Cormack, who had recently lost his place in the Senate.

Malcolm Fraser had put his name forward as a way of building a profile for future candidacies, but mounted a strong campaign and in the end won a narrow victory.

At the 1954 election, Malcolm Fraser lost to the sitting Labor member Don McLeod by just 17 votes.

Malcolm Fraser was re-elected at the 1958 election despite being restricted in his campaigning by a bout of hepatitis.

Malcolm Fraser was being touted as a future member of cabinet, but despite good relations with Robert Menzies never served in cabinet during Menzies' tenure.

Malcolm Fraser's long wait for ministerial preferment was probably due to a combination of his youth and the fact that Menzies' ministries already contained a disproportionately high number of Victorians.

Malcolm Fraser spoke on a wide range of topics during his early years in parliament, but took a particular interest in foreign affairs.

In that position, Malcolm Fraser presided over the controversial Vietnam War conscription program.

In March 1971 Malcolm Fraser abruptly resigned from the Cabinet in protest at what he called Gorton's "interference in ministerial responsibilities", and denounced Gorton on the floor of the House of Representatives as "not fit to hold the great office of Prime Minister".

Malcolm Fraser remained on the backbenches until he was reinstated to Cabinet in his old position of Minister for Education and Science by McMahon in August 1971, immediately following Gorton's sacking as deputy Liberal leader by McMahon.

Malcolm Fraser outpolled John Gorton and James Killen, but was eliminated on the third ballot.

Malcolm Fraser had hoped to be given responsibility for foreign affairs, but that role was given to Andrew Peacock.

Malcolm Fraser oversaw the development of the party's new industrial relations policy, which was released in April 1974.

Malcolm Fraser again challenged Snedden on 21 March 1975, this time succeeding and becoming Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition.

Malcolm Fraser was immediately sworn in as caretaker prime minister on the condition that he end the political deadlock and call an immediate double dissolution election.

At the 1975 election, Malcolm Fraser led the Liberal-Country Party Coalition to a landslide victory.

Malcolm Fraser subsequently led the Coalition to a second victory in 1977, with only a very small decrease in their vote.

Malcolm Fraser quickly dismantled some of the programs of the Whitlam government, such as the Ministry of the Media, and made major changes to the universal health insurance system Medibank.

Malcolm Fraser initially maintained Whitlam's levels of tax and spending, but real per-person tax and spending soon began to increase.

Malcolm Fraser did manage to rein in inflation, which had soared under Whitlam.

Malcolm Fraser practised Keynesian economics during his time as Prime Minister, in part demonstrated by running budget deficits throughout his term as Prime Minister.

Malcolm Fraser was the Liberal Party's last Keynesian Prime Minister.

Malcolm Fraser was particularly active in foreign policy as prime minister.

Malcolm Fraser supported the Commonwealth in campaigning to abolish apartheid in South Africa and refused permission for the aircraft carrying the Springbok rugby team to refuel on Australian territory en route to their controversial 1981 tour of New Zealand.

Duncan Campbell, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has stated that Malcolm Fraser was "the principal architect" in the ending of white minority rule.

Under Malcolm Fraser, Australia recognised Indonesia's annexation of East Timor, although many East Timorese refugees were granted asylum in Australia.

Malcolm Fraser was a strong supporter of the United States and supported the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

However, although he persuaded some sporting bodies not to compete, Malcolm Fraser did not try to prevent the Australian Olympic Committee sending a team to the Moscow Games.

Malcolm Fraser's aim was to expand immigration from Asian countries and allow more refugees to enter Australia.

Malcolm Fraser was a firm supporter of multiculturalism and established a government-funded multilingual radio and television network, the Special Broadcasting Service, building on their first radio stations which had been established under the Whitlam government.

Malcolm Fraser legislated to give Indigenous Australians control of their traditional lands in the Northern Territory, but resisted imposing land rights laws on conservative state governments.

At the 1980 election, Malcolm Fraser saw his majority more than halved, from 48 seats to 21.

Malcolm Fraser had accused former prime minister John Gorton of the same thing a decade earlier.

Malcolm Fraser was well aware of the infighting this caused between Hayden and Hawke and had planned to call a snap election in autumn 1982, preventing the Labor Party changing leaders.

Malcolm Fraser knew that if the writs were issued soon enough, Labor would essentially be frozen into going into the subsequent election with Hayden as leader.

On 3 February 1983, Malcolm Fraser arranged to visit the Governor-General of Australia, Sir Ninian Stephen, intending to ask for a surprise election.

Malcolm Fraser immediately announced his resignation as Liberal leader and formally resigned as prime minister on 11 March 1983; he retired from Parliament two months later.

Malcolm Fraser was a distinguished international fellow at the American Enterprise Institute from 1984 to 1986.

Malcolm Fraser helped to establish the foreign aid group CARE organisation in Australia and became the agency's international president in 1991, and worked with a number of other charitable organisations.

In 1993, Malcolm Fraser made a bid for the Liberal Party presidency but withdrew at the last minute following opposition to his bid, which was raised due to his having been critical of then Liberal leader John Hewson for losing the election earlier that year.

Malcolm Fraser opposed Howard's policy on asylum-seekers, campaigned in support of an Australian Republic and attacked what he perceived as a lack of integrity in Australian politics, together with former Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam, finding much common ground with his predecessor and his successor Bob Hawke, another republican.

Malcolm Fraser claimed that the way the Howard government handled the David Hicks, Cornelia Rau and Vivian Solon cases was questionable.

Shortly after Tony Abbott won the 2009 Liberal Party leadership spill, Malcolm Fraser ended his Liberal Party membership, stating the party was "no longer a liberal party but a conservative party".

In December 2011, Malcolm Fraser was highly critical of the Australian government's decision to permit the export of uranium to India, relaxing the Malcolm Fraser government's policy of banning sales of uranium to countries that are not signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In 2012, Malcolm Fraser criticised the basing of US military forces in Australia.

In late 2012, Malcolm Fraser wrote a foreword for the journal Jurisprudence where he openly criticised the current state of human rights in Australia and the Western World.

In July 2013, Malcolm Fraser endorsed Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young for re-election in a television advertisement, stating she had been a "reasonable and fair-minded voice".

On 9 December 1956, Malcolm Fraser married Tamara "Tamie" Beggs, who was almost six years his junior.

Malcolm Fraser advised him on most of the important decisions in his career, and in retirement he observed that "if she had been prime minister in 1983, we would have won".

Margaret Simons, the co-author of Malcolm Fraser's memoirs, thought that he was "not religious, and yet thinks religion is a necessary thing".

Malcolm Fraser died on 20 March 2015 at the age of 84, after a brief illness.

Malcolm Fraser's death came five months after that of his predecessor and political rival Gough Whitlam.

Malcolm Fraser was given a state funeral at Scots' Church in Melbourne on 27 March 2015.

Malcolm Fraser's ashes are interred within the Prime Ministers Garden of Melbourne General Cemetery.