5-minute Lowy Lunch: Malcolm Fraser

Yesterday we hosted former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser for a public conversation with our Executive Director, Michael Wesley. You can listen here to the discussion, which focused on the foreign policy elements of Mr Fraser's new book. It includes Q&A with the audience.

But I recommend you also listen to the interview Mr Fraser granted me. Things start out pretty sedately, but then Mr Fraser makes a comment about the need for a strong central government in China. This is a view a lot of China observers hold but which others regard as a pre-emptive excuse for repression.

So I challenged Mr Fraser on this point. As you'll hear, he doesn't take a backward step, and in fact he goes on to make some surprising human rights comparisons between China and Australia.