He told supporters that short-term unpopularity could be overcome if you had the courage of your convictions and explained what you wanted to achieve.

Only days later he was elected the new member for Wannon. Mr Fraser stood by his commitment to liberalism throughout six decades of public life, his views shaped by his formative years at Oxford University.

South-west voters of a certain vintage remember the young man in the tweed jacket visiting their local pub as he campaigned for the first time. 

Mr Fraser was an exemplary local MP. He gave weekly radio broadcasts, regularly attended meetings and staged listening posts.

Mr Fraser was committed to being different from the mob. He was a complex man who defied stereotypes and easy description. The former PM could be described as both authoritarian and compassionate; a man of privilege who believed in egalitarianism and an idealist who was ruthless in his pursuit of power.

An aggressive opposition leader, Mr Fraser tenaciously attacked the Whitlam government and controversially seized The Lodge during the 1975 constitutional crisis. 

Australians backed the move at the 1975 federal election by handing him one of the biggest landslides in the nation’s history. His seven years in office were transformative, despite suggestions to the contrary.

Vietnamese migration; the establishment of SBS and the Australian Federal Police; Aboriginal land rights reform, self-government for the Northern Territory; setting up the Federal Court and the Family Court of Australia.

Locally, he was crucial in setting up the forerunner to Deakin University, rebuilding the Port of Portland and establishing television services.

Bob Hawke claimed many years ago that his predecessor may have won the electorate’s votes but he didn’t win their hearts. This is no longer true given the volume of tributes in the days since his passing.

Malcolm Fraser was one of Australia’s great prime ministers.