Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam both warned against surrendering Australian sovereignty to US military and intelligence interests, but AUKUS and the Albanese government’s foreign policy have deepened that dependence.

“Even if America was a benign power and it had the capacity to make good diplomatic decisions, I would not want to give that power, any power, the capacity to take Australia to war because they go to war,” Malcolm Fraser said in a 2015 address to the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Gough Whitlam would have agreed wholeheartedly, but not Anthony Albanese.

After publishing his book Dangerous Allies, Malcolm Fraser was asked at the same meeting why it (Dangerous Allies) got so little publicity. He replied “there is one short answer…74 per cent of Australia’s daily newspapers are owned by somebody whose main business activities are American. You’ve only got to read the articles that come out of their flagship, if you like, to know how pro-American they are."

Let’s look at key issues and compare Malcolm Fraser with Gough Whitlam and Anthony Albanese.

Sovereignty and foreign bases

In government Malcolm Fraser was initially a strong supporter of the US alliance. But that changed. In March 1981 as Prime Minister he said: “the Australian government has a firm policy that aircraft carrying nuclear weapons will not be allowed to fly over or stage through Australia without its prior knowledge and agreement. Nothing less than this would be consistent with the maintenance of our national sovereignty.”

In 2015 he said: “Australia’s position is so close to that of the United States that its capacity to make independent decisions is severely limited…we are now totally captive and interoperability has become, if you like, America’s new imperialism…If we wanted to strengthen the kind of arguments the old President Bush would use…..telling America: take your troops out of Darwin, close down Pine Gap, and I’d give them three, four or five years to do that because it’s a highly complex facility – but I would pull Australians out of it within six........

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