Malcolm Fraser: An unlikely radical
- Hated by progressives for his role in Gough Whitlam's dismissal and his ultra-conservative foreign policies when Liberal PM, Malcolm Fraser today believes Australia should cut all military ties to the US.
Fraser, the most pro-American of all Australia's leaders during the latter stages of the Cold War, began to question the character of almost every aspect of America's international behaviour: its narcissistic self-image as the light unto the world, its imperial arrogance, its systematic abuse of military power.
He came to believe that a long-standing, deep-seated and self-crippling "craving" for dependency on a great and powerful friend is to be found at the very heart of what he calls Australia's "national psyche".
In 2011, President Obama announced that Darwin would become a US Army base; Fraser tells me that it was "an absolute disgrace" that this momentous decision was scarcely debated in Australia. He also thinks it disgraceful that we allowed President Obama to announce the US decision for its pivot into the western Pacific while on Australian soil. This symbolises for him the willing abdication not only of our independence but, more deeply, of our sovereignty.