Preselection Speech
Malcolm Fraser decided to stand for pre-selection for the Liberal and Country Party in the seat of Wannon in western Victoria following his return from the University of Oxford in mid-1952. He presented his speech for pre-selection at the Hamilton Temperance Hall on 11 November 1953.
In his book Common ground: Issues that should bind and not divide us, Malcolm Fraser recalls:
I had hardly made a speech in my life. I was so nervous I wasn’t even sure that I would be able to make one. I was determined not to stand up with a prepared text and read it; that would be equivalent to vacating the field. (p. xviii)
Instead he spoke from rough notes, prepared from a longer and more academic version of his speech prepared beforehand (see typescript draft below).
Sources
Ayres, Philip 1987, Malcolm Fraser: A biography, Richmond, Vic., William Heinemann Australia.
Curran, James 2004, The power of speech: Australian Prime Ministers defining the national image, Carlton Vic., Melbourne University Press, 107–8.
Fraser, Malcolm 2003, Common ground: Issues that should bind and not divide us, Camberwell, Vic., Penguin Books.
Fraser, Malcolm, Personal correspondence.
Preparatory Typescript Draft
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Final Manuscript Notes
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