Given Fraser’s shaky attachment to the truth, one should ignore the claims below. He makes a great point of being “anti-racist” — to the point of sucking up to African dictators. It is sad that he has no other claim on praise, given the many wasted opportunities for constructive reform he had whilst Prime Minister
Former prime minister Malcolm Fraser has blamed the immigration department for some policies such as remote detention centres that he believes may have racist motivations. He argues that white farmers fleeing Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe would not have been held in remote detention centres like more recent asylum seekers have been.
“The whole idea for establishing a detention centre in a remote, harsh place … that sort of idea came out of the department,” Mr Fraser told ABC Television on Tuesday. Asked if there was a racist culture within the department, he replied: “Maybe.”
Mr Fraser added the Rudd government was “a little” better than the former coalition government when it came to the treatment of asylum seekers. He also challenged the coalition argument that Labor had lost control of Australia’s borders. The former prime minister has given media interviews to promote his book, Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs by Malcolm Fraser and Margaret Simons.
February 27, 2010 at 2:29 pm
What this old fool has to say has absolutely no relevance and no one is listening to him. It’s unfortunate that we have to hear his senile rambling from time to time but really, he should enjoy what remaining years he has left to live and not try to ruin the quality of life for us, the younger generation-the future.
May 26, 2010 at 9:32 pm
I am no protagonist for Fraser or any other Australian politician.
As a new migrant to Australia in 1973, I joined the Immigration Department in February 1974 and worked initially in the Residence Control Section. (I had previously served as an Immigration Officer at Dover and as UK Entry Certificate Officer in Trinidad with the British Immigration Service).
I found that people with dark skin colour (whether indigenous or otherwise) were routinely referred to by senior Australian Immigration Department officers as coons, darkies, niggers, kaffirs, spades, wogs, etc etc.
Is that racism?
When a year or two later I had been transferred to the Department of Foreign Affairs (Immigration and Visa Section) and had become aware of the treatment of the inmates of the Immigration detention centres
at the hands of armed Commonwealth Police, I was appalled, and quit the Australian public service in disgust.
In my opinion, official secrecy is used on a wide scale in Australia to hide government malfeasance.