Vale, Malcolm Fraser.
You were a liberal lion in its truest sense; a tireless humanitarian campaigner for dignity, decency, compassion and justice in all corners of Australian life. Your fierce rejection of racism in all its forms must forever remain the centrepiece of your legacy, because Australia needs it to be.
We all must recognise how dangerously far to the Right Australia's political narrative has drifted (or been dragged) in the last twenty years, if we are ever to return it to a more reasoned position in which open-mindedness, progressiveness, tolerance and empathy are the central, embedded values that define us as a nation.
Mr Fraser, thank you for always having the courage to provide a voice for the voiceless; for placing more importance on being morally right than politically popular; for daring to call your former party - and the Labor party- on the many and varied ways that they have failed to honour our international human rights obligations; for calling out bigotry in all it forms; and for forging a real and lasting friendship with your former foe, the incomparable Gough, and in doing so, demonstrating that beyond the parry and thrust of political life, an abiding sense of respect can endure and even flourish, between people of principle, conscience and intellect.
Your passing highlights with booming clarity the appalling lack of genuine statesmen in Australia at the moment. I hope all men and women currently in politics look closely at how you stood by your principles, look even more closely at what those principles were, and finally, choose to take a good and long hard look at themselves.
I remain forever hopeful that your post-prime-ministerial legacy of compassion, dignity and decency will continue to shape our national story for many years to come.
Rest in peace.
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