It is a bit quiet at the moment so the media need their usual speculative gossip and manufactured controversy to haul in those dumbed-down audiences.

The death of a former PM is newsworthy. The speculative stuff is aimed at extending the life of the story.

The Greens as usual are jockeying to be the main story. Especially Sarah Hanson-Young, who gives Derryn Hinch quite a run for the title of Australia's human headline.

The following website sums up the man rather well:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-20/matthewson-malcolm-fraser-right-and-left-politics/6336146

"The death of Malcolm Fraser is a poignant reminder of a
time when it was not considered weak or permissive to
be a progressive in the Liberal Party; a time when a
Liberal politician and a government could be economically
as well as socially responsible."

"Such a combination should not be a relic of the past to be
wistfully remembered, but a feature of today's politics.
The sadness of Fraser's death is magnified by his loss as a
role model for modern Liberal progressives."

The best thing that Fraser did in his political career was to provide the circumstances for Whitlam to be dismissed by Kerr. It was all downhill from then on. However he did admit the Vietnamese refugees (presumed to be good coalition supporters), and this was opposed by Whitlam, presumably for the same reason. One can only assume today that the differnt attitudes to muslim immigrants is based on the perception that they would make good Labor voters. Apart from that Australia stagnated throuought his term, and it wasn't until Hawke and Keating that we got some modernisation of the economy.

Perhaps the greatest criticism of Fraser is the comment that if he supported so many left-liberal measures why did he not introduce them when he had the power?