He dind't defend himself he excused himself. As usual.
I agree with your sentiments and I am no supporter of Mugabe or Fraser but at the time the whole world welcomed Mugabe he was considered a moderate and I also know a lot of white Zimbabweans who voted for him and welcomed him.They even prospered under him initiatily.
At the time he was seen as a moderate reformer who for a while supported the farmers and did good things.
In hindight of course Mugabe is a nutter, it is probably old age and senility setting in.
Zimbabwa was seen as the future model for democratic change in Sth Africa, as it transferred from Colonial rule to self rule well.
Hinsight is a wonderfull thing and the history of Sth Afrtica is very interesting if you can find books on it.
Essentially though the old Colonial powers, in particular the UK need to step in and do something about this despot before it becomes another Rwanda.
And Fraser, who cares he should go and die, he was useless in office and now he has found his heart and so called honour... a bit late I reckon.
I'm no fan of Fraser, but to claim he was useless in office is an unfair criticism. Yes, he had a majority in the Senate and failed to put in place reforms advocated by Howard as Treasurer (which Keating and Hawke subsequently implimented) but Fraser took over from the worst PM in Australia's history. Just steadying the ship and trying and undo the immense damage done by Gough et al was itself an achievement.
Mal deserves to be rubbished for his betrayal of the Liberal Party during the Howard years. He deserves to be rubbished for creating the SBS. He desserves to be criticised for not having a zeal for for reform.
That said, on the whole he was a good PM and compared to the disgrace of a PM that preceded him, Mal deserves our applause and gratitude.
Agree that his post-office conduct deserves to be criticised.
It is unfortunate that he has lowered himself when in reality no-one cares of his opinion.
His membership to the party should have been withdrawn years ago.
Malcolm was a good liberal prime minister, just a different sort than Howard was. The Fraser government was about 5 times better than the second Whitlam one and about twice that of the first Whitlam one.
If you exclude Keating from that list of anti-communist, reforming heroes I'll accept this as an excellent post. Apart from the kissing of Chinese ass, Keating's recent praises of Putin were, well, somewhat misguided.
This article sums it up brilliantly.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/
op...9276541557.html
The only good thing Keating did was tell that dreadlocked protesting hippy to get a job :p
Good to see the South Africans dock workers gave the Communist China arms cargo ship the boot from Durban harbour (good surf beach) but it will only go the Mozambique to off load it cargo for Rhodesia. Mozambique, a former Portugese colony, is now in the Commonwealth. They should be suspended if the arms for the ZANU-PF "the planet of the apes" Mugabe government are landed there.
Also one of Mugabes first acts was to get North Korean storm troopers into train his 9th Brigade to surpress all black opposition so the remarks about Mugabe being OK initally is crap. I was there in 1987 and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was turning to shit even then with lots of unemployed black hanging around the capital Salisbury (now Harare). Comrade Mugabes gun control was big there 20 years ago. Now opponents to Mugabe can't defend themselves. Perhaps John Howard copied Mugabe in that one.
As an aside re the Frazer bust pictured. I think this is in the gardens at Ballarat. If you think the poo on him head is funny take a look at Keatings bust as his head looks like a shrivelled up prune.
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