Australia’s 22nd Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser has died aged 84.
A statement released by Fraser’s office today said he died peacefully in the early hours of Friday morning.
“It is with deep sadness that we inform you that after a brief illness John Malcolm Fraser died peacefully in the early hours of the morning of 20 March 2015,” the statement read.
“We appreciate that this will be a shock to all who knew and loved him, but ask that the family be left in peace at this difficult time.”
Fraser was first elected to the Australian federal parliament in 1955, at just 25 years old. He was elected to his local Victorian seat of Wannon.
At 36, Fraser was first appointed to the federal cabinet in 1966 as Minister for the Army under Prime Minister Harold Holt. He was then promoted to Minister for Defence in 1969 under Prime Minister John Gorton.
When the Liberal Party was defeated by the Gough Whitlam-led Labor Party in 1972, Fraser stood for election as its leader, but was defeated by Billy Snedden. Then, three years later, he contended the leadership again, and won.
Fraser became the leader of the Liberal Party on March 21, 1975.
Later that year, on November 11, 1975, Gough Whitlam was dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr and Fraser became the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia.
In the double dissolution and federal election that followed Whitlam’s dismissal, Fraser won the prime ministership with what remains the biggest landslide in Australia’s political history.
Fraser then went on to win two federal elections as Prime Minister, in 1977 and 1980. In the following election, in 1983, he was defeated by Bob Hawke and retired from parliament.
As Prime Minister, Fraser was active on the global stage and in reforming Australia’s economic policy. His foreign policies reshaped Australia’s relationships with Southeast and East Asia as well as Britain.
He also reformed Australia’s immigration policy, providing for “a humanitarian commitment to admit refugees for resettlement”.
“If people are genuine refugees… there is no deterrent we can create which is going to be severe enough, cruel enough, nasty enough to stop them fleeing the terror from which they flee in their own lands,” Fraser said in 2013.
Fraser has been particularly vocal over the past few years, indeed the past few months, on Australia’s current asylum seeker policy. In mid-2013 he called for a Royal Commission into the offshore processing facilities Australia was and is using to process refugees.
“They’ve allowed the most terrible conditions to prevail. What’s happened on Manus is not new. It’s been going on for months and months. The department have known that, and it’s only publicexposure that has brought it to light, brought about, hopefully, some change,” he said.
Fraser has involved himself frequently in current Australian politics in recent months, taking to Twitter to comment on the Abbott government’s asylum seeker policy, its treatment of Gillian Triggs over the Forgotten Children report, the leadership instability as well as a host of foreign policy issues.
Fraser is survived by his wife Tamie and his four children, Phoebe, Mark, Angela and Hugh.