Mr MARLES (Corio) (18:47): Today is an occasion of sadness, but it is also an occasion of honour to be able to speak on the condolence motion to celebrate the life of the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser. As I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the last Labor government, having spent at the end of that time some considerable attention on Africa, it would be appropriate for me to focus on Malcolm Fraser's enormous contribution to the cause of ending apartheid in South Africa and indeed the cause of the pursuit of human rights in Southern Africa. His contribution to that honours our country as a whole. As I was the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs in the last Labor government, spending a considerable amount on PNG, again it would be remiss of me not to mention the significant contribution that Malcolm Fraser made to the beginnings of the independent state of Papua New Guinea, supporting PNG, as he did, in the early days of that sovereign state after independence, which occurred in September 1975, just a month or two before Malcolm Fraser became the Prime Minister of Australia. Indeed, his efforts to ensure that there was significant support for that country in its early days were absolutely fundamental to the growth and survival of PNG. It led in 2011 to Malcolm Fraser being awarded the Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu, which gives him the entitlement to be called Chief Malcolm Fraser. I was the parliamentary secretary at that time. PNG, I have often felt, ought to be seen as utterly central to Australian foreign policy. I think that is a point which needs to be emphasised as often as possible, but Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister saw the centrality of our relationship with PNG in our world view as a lesson for every practitioner of foreign affairs about the significance of that bilateral relationship. And now, as I am the shadow minister for immigration, it would also be remiss of me not to mention the enormous contribution that Malcolm Fraser made in this area, ushering as he did the wave of Vietnamese and Indochinese immigration in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to our country, which has completely changed the face of modern Australia and is an enormous contribution to who we are as a society today. We have heard in other contributions the fact that Malcolm Fraser was the first person in this place to use the word 'multiculturalism' as a descriptor for Australia. John Menadue, who has had an esteemed career as a public servant in Canberra and was the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs during much of the time that Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister, regards that as the most exciting opportunity that he had in his career of public service to Australia and absolutely believes that it has profoundly changed who we are as a nation. It is appropriate also to mention in that context Mick Young, who was the shadow minister for immigration at the time, who very much offered bipartisan support on the part of the Labor opposition. But really the contribution that I want to make this evening is more of a personal reflection in respect of Malcolm Fraser. I did not know Malcolm Fraser, but as a child of Victoria's south-west I certainly knew members of Malcolm Fraser's extended family and saw the personal side, if I can put it that way, of Malcolm Fraser. I attended school with two—more, actually, but I had two friends particularly who were Malcolm Fraser's nephews, Dan Ritchie and David Beggs. Phoebe Fraser was also at school with me. She was a little bit older than me, and I did not know Phoebe, but Dan and David were good friends of mine while I was at school. I remember very clearly when I was probably about 12 years old, being more precocious than I should—clearly, I am sure, speaking from a place of ignorance—railing against the then Fraser government. I was unreasonably politicised at the age of 12, which probably demonstrates the sad specimen of a human being that I am—that that is what I was thinking about at that age— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Ewen Jones ): Order! Order! Leave that to the government, please! Mr MARLES: I was in a circle of discussion which Dan was in, and I was talking about how terrible Malcolm Fraser was. At the end of it, Dan, to my great discredit, left that gathering crying. It taught me a couple of lessons. The first is that I did not feel good about the fact that, as result of a political discussion, I had put somebody in a state of tears and they had ended up leaving. It did not make me feel good at all. It has been a lesson that has stuck with me to this day, that politics ought to be discussed vigorously, but it ought never to be a cause of creating a personal difference between two people. I apologised to Dan at the time—I hope I did. I certainly do now. Of course, the great exponent of that philosophy was Malcolm Fraser himself. The relationship that Malcolm Fraser subsequently had with Gough Whitlam is the greatest example in our history of how personal friendships can traverse whatever political differences we have in this place. It is an enormous credit to both Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam that they were able to have that relationship. It has to stand as an example for all of us in this place at this point that, in the place of personal friendships and in the place of collegiality across the aisle, so many good things can be achieved and so many good things can be done. This is not to belittle the need to argue our points of view as vigorously as we can and to pursue politics in that way, but it is to say that there is an important space that can be created in which great things can occur if we can ensure that the relationships and the personal rapport that come from that are able to be maintained. The friendship between Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser was not that important, but together they did really significant things post their political lives. The second point that came out of that moment with Dan was to discover that Malcolm Fraser—somebody who I had seen on the TV and in newspapers—was actually a real person. He was Dan's uncle, not a distant uncle but an uncle whom he loved and who loved him such that, when a brat like me was saying what I was saying, it really hurt him. It is a reminder, again, that everyone in public life is a real person. Also, the most significant thing that any of us do in this place is never as significant as the role that we play in our lives as the loved ones of those who love us. I remember being at David's 21st birthday, out in the Western District, and Malcolm Fraser was there. I was very keen to see a former Prime Minister, as he was at that point, so a friend of mine and I sidled up to him in the ice-cream queue and I think I met the shyness of Malcolm Fraser at that moment as we tried to get a conversation going in relation to footy. Later, on the day of the national apology in precisely this space, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Malcolm and Tamie Fraser, and indicated my friendship with both Dan and David Beggs. It was a moment of animation in Malcolm Fraser's eyes as I spoke to him about his nephews. That obviously had nothing to do with me; it had everything to do with what those two people meant to Malcolm Fraser. I think it is a really poignant lesson that he as the Prime Minister of Australia, achieving the highest office in this land, could still see how important it was that family came first. I was reminded, and want to remind people today, of an interview that he conducted in the lead-up to the 1983 election. I think the question was asked of him about what he had learnt and what was important to him as the Prime Minister of Australia. The very first comment he made was about the importance of family and how, no matter what the meeting was and no matter how busy he was, whenever there was a call made to him from one of his children, that is what came first. That was the priority in his life as Prime Minister and that was the call that he answered immediately. That is a mantra which I have tried to maintain, probably not as well as he did, in my life in this place as well. Whilst there are enormous public policy legacies that are rightly celebrated in the speeches that are being made here in this condolence debate, it is really those personal reflections of Malcolm Fraser's life which have had the biggest impact on me as a person and also as a parliamentarian. My thoughts right now are very much with Dan Ritchie, David Beggs and the extended family of Malcolm Fraser, as they are with his immediate family: his wife Tamie and his children Mark, Angela, Hugh and Phoebe. They are the family of a remarkable Australian and my thoughts are very much with them at this time.