Fraser damns 'inhumane' PM

[foreigncorrespondent]

Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has accused the Howard Government of abandoning the rule of law and behaving like a "tyrannical regime".

<snip>

In a dire assessment of Australia's foreign policy, he said that support of the war on terror could provoke a "decades-long war against Islam with the possibility of extraordinary destruction throughout the world".

<snip>

In a dire assessment of Australia's foreign policy, he said that support of the war on terror could provoke a "decades-long war against Islam with the possibility of extraordinary destruction throughout the world".

<snip>

Link: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/fraser-damns-inhumane-pm/2007/05/01/1177788067208.html

Ok guys, what is going on with Fraser? This isn't the first time he has slammed Howard, and I am betting it won't be the last.

[Esra Star]

1. I think Mr Fraser realises belatedly that democracy is a fragile and

sacred thing. His coup back in '75 was a disgrace.
Before he dies he wants everybody to know that he
repented.

[Matilda]

2. He was such a prick back in '75.

He only needed a little patience, and it was all going to be his anyway - Gough was never going to
survive another election.

Fraser now acknowledges - I've heard him say it in interview - that he has far more in common with
Gough than he does with Howard.

He's probably mellowed a little, but I think it also says a great deal about how far to the right
Howard has taken the Liberal Party.

[Djinn]

5. I save my vitriol for Kerr

I don't think you can blame ny leader of an opposition party taking advantage of a drunken, social climbing fool in order to become the PM.

Fraser is a TRUE Liberal. Howard is a CONSERVATIVE. Technically there really isn't a conservative party in Australia, possibly the Nats. The Libs were not intended to be conservatives.

"......what we must look for, and it is a matter of desperate importance to our society, is a true revival of liberal thought which will work for social justice and security, for national power and national progress, and for the full development of the individual citizen, though not through the dull and deadening process of socialism." Menzies

Whilst Howard likes to think of himself as the inheritor of Menzie's legacy, old Pig Iron must have spent the last ten years spinning in his grave as Coward turned the Libs into a socially reactionary organistion.

[Esra Star]

6. When our behated demagogue appointed his stooge

Albert Patrick Field to the senate vacancy, they saw
the exciting possibility. They had time to think about
the repercussions, but the glittering prize was just
too attractive. So they threw out any Westminster
principles and forever disgraced themselves. qed

[Djinn]

7. Agree they disgraced themselves

but they certainly didn't throw out Westminster tradition which states the Queen (or King) can dissolve Parliament.

[Matilda]

8. Joh never did see things the same way that other people did.

At least it led to the law being changed so it could never happen again, but too late to save Gough.

[Esra Star]

9. I am not sure that any legislation was enacted. There may be a

rule book somewhere that had the wording changed.
Interesting point.
Were both problems addressed, or did they just change the
Senatorial appointment convention?

[Matilda]

11. I found this in a website from Macquarie University

dealing with the Australaian Constitution.

"Read Section 15 (ten paragraphs). This section was also amended, in 1977 (see original wording). The purpose of the amendment was to make sure that a State Government could not replace a senator of the opposite party with someone hostile to that party (as the Bjelke-Petersen National Party Government in Queensland had just done). This is the only place in the Constitution that mentions the existence of political parties. Replacement by a senator of the same party was previously regarded as required by convention, but the Bjelke-Petersen Government "had defied the convention so it was made legally enforceable. The complexity of this section illustrates one reason why many things are left to convention -- it is often very difficult to spell out the convention without giving rise to unforeseen consequences."

http://www.humanities.mq.edu.au/Ockham/comment.html

An interesting footnote to this section:

"One of the political consequences of the new version of section 15, unforeseen at least by the public (though perhaps not by party tacticians), has been an increase in casual vacancies (see paper, Senate Casual Vacancies). The political parties now have a means of appointing people to the Senate without their having to face an election until later, when they will enjoy the advantages of incumbency. It works like this: When an existing Senator decides that the time has come to retire, he/she retires after a Senate election, and the party's favoured replacement then moves into the job without an election and serves out the retiring Senator's term."

Wonder who they've picked to replace Amanda Vanstone?

[Esra Star]

12. Thanks for that. It would be unusual if the problem's repair

wasn't written to law.
The other question of supply apparently is unrepairable.
Civilisation is only in small increments.
Cheers.

[iverglas]

10. we should arrange some exchange visits

between the Canada forum and the Australia forum. Change the names -- Howard/Harper, Fraser/Clark or some such -- the stories could be the same (even though the party is called Conservative / was called Progressive Conservative). ;)

Our Liberals ... well, you're actually lucky you don't have a Conservative party. Here, one of its main functions is to look worse than the Natural Governing Party, er, Liberals, so the Liberals can just keep on pretending they're not a right-wing party.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. There's a Canada forum??

What will DU come up with next? ;)

I should learn about Canadian politics, coz I'm decidedly ignorant of politics in that bit of the world :)

[iverglas]

15. boo

Actually, the Canada Forum is a quick way to see what's going on over/up here. Somebody or other will likely post a link to whatever's in the news on any given day. The top ten today (other than local colour about the joys of trying to get a passport these days, now that we need one to go to the US):

Trudeau wins Montreal riding nomination
Harper's uncivil political discourse...
GO SENS GO Click
Pricey parcels drive Calgary land rush
Pro-9/11 column may oust Green candidate
When things got ugly in Ottawa, Kabul extended an olive branch
Jarislowsky assails Canfor's ‘poison pill' move
Defeating Harper easy as ABC, Williams tells Toronto audience
Union, Ocean Choice rap Hearn over quota stand
End of the line for railcar workers

Yes, the obligatory hockey thread ...

And what, you didn't know that Trudeau had risen from the dead? Think John-John ...

[Violet_Crumble]

13. Fraser doesn't get off that lightly...

Because taking advantage of a drunken old fart wasn't all there was to it. He led an opposition party that blocked supply bills in order to try to force an early election, and there were long-standing conventions that were shat all over by the Liberal Party, and while they were unwritten conventions, they had been respected for a long time and shouldn't have been broken. While Fraser doesn't take all the blame (the two state Premiers who ignored convention and selected non ALP replacements for two ALP vacancies in the Sentate, Kerr, and Sir Garfield Barwick also are to blame), he deserved some vitriol for his role...

The Liberal Party was intended to be a conservative party and to cater to the centre => right of politics and it was formed out of conservative parties. And Howard isn't some abberation of Liberal ideals. He's representative of what has always been a socially conservative majority of the membership of the Liberal Party. Fraser, on the other hand, is a 'wet', as opposed to the majority who are 'dry' (weird terminology but that's what we got taught in polsci)...

Fraser didn't have an epipathany or anything, imo. He's always been socially liberal, and while he was constrained by being leader of the Liberal Party, people never got to see it. But once he left politics, he was able to express his opinions openly, and has become what I think is a really decent person who's made up for what he did back in 1975...

[Matilda]

3. Hi, FC - nice to see you back here.

Hope everything is going okay for you.

:hi:

[foreigncorrespondent]

4. Thanks, mate!!!

As well as it can be I guess! :)

[Aussie leftie]

16. Fraser's change in attitude could come from

his embarrassing experience in Memphis. Maybe he realized that he is also prone to human error. Whether he has changed dramatically or it could be the case that Howard is just so morally destitute.

At least when Fraser was Prime Minister Australia still had an international high standing. We now live in a country that on the face of it has a good economy, but we have lost our soul to the almighty dollar devil.