Mr Fraser, prime minister from 1975 to 1983, gave Mr Abbott full marks for leading the international effort to recover the bodies from the MH17 plane crash in east Ukraine. But he criticised Mr Abbotts decision to send Australian military trainers and advisers to help Ukraine combat Russias aggression. What is Australia doing taking on a combat role in the Ukraine for Gods sake? Mr Fraser said. We should not be on one side or the other. Were not a world power and we have problems in our own backyard we should pay more attention to. While noting Labor also supported offshore processing, Mr Fraser said stopping the boats had come at too high a cost and that the government should stop processing at Nauru and Manus Island. The more it goes on the more we discover about the brutality in those places, he said, referring to the deaths of two asylum seekers held at Manus Island. How can someone be a Christian for one hour a week? Mr Fraser – who quit the Liberal Party in 2010 because he thought it had become too conservative – criticised the government for its close relationship with the Rajapaksa government in Sri Lanka. He said Mr Abbott should have joined with his British and Canadian counterparts to support an international investigation into alleged war crimes by the government and the Tamil Tigers. Instead we are pretending everything is fine and giving the government patrol boats, he said. Read more: smh.au/federal-politics/political-news/former-liberal-leaders-weigh-up-pms-hits-and-misses-20140906-10d1yw.html#ixzz3CbnnJhhT
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 06:28:45 +0000
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