Fraser

by Pat Caruana

Five and half years ago when my friend Fraser Brindley was the Greens’ lead candidate for Lyons, the Libs ran a flyer against him with ‘LAW BREAKER’ in bold text and a series of headlines saying ‘charged with alleged hacking’, ‘proud of breaking law’ and ‘would not rule out breaking the law again’.

It was a deeply comical way to describe the fact that he, alongside investigative journalists Nick McKenzie and Royce Millar had blown the whistle on how Labor had a secret database of voter profiles that otherwise would have been illegal but for the exemption that political parties had given themselves under the Privacy Act.

At the time of the ‘offence’, with its sister publications in the UK for hacking the phones of dead children and the like, the Herald Sun, with leaks from the Labor Party tried to paint it as a scandal in a similar vein.

The News Corp rags and the major parties could never really figure out someone like Fraser, who refused to play by their bullshit rules and fought for decades against the frameworks of exploitation they helped to create and reinforce.

To be frank, they were right to be scared of him. He was everything they are not.

He saw injustice and wrong and sought to make it right. He used his force of will to bring it to public attention, and build unlikely coalitions to get things changed. And he often succeeded.

No one else had the guile or the wit to bring together the Greens, Labor, the Nats, and One Nation (One Fucking Nation) to vote the same way on motions calling for a Royal Commission into the banks. Without Fraser, that Royal Commission never would have happened.

He was the smartest person I ever met, and I rarely ended a conversation with him without feeling like I had learned something.

We progressives and lefties are all aware that things are unfair, and that the rich and powerful need to be stripped of their wealth and their power to start making that better.

But Fraser got precisely how the machine was grinding people into dust.

He knew exactly why the Reserve Bank made the decisions it made, why the housing line had to go up, all of the dirty tricks the rich use to avoid paying tax, how dirty money was quintessential to much of the economy.

He knew how real estate equalled class in Australia, and knew how wealth protected wealth.

He knew how the military industrial complex got its filthy claws in all parts of Government, and was forever mad at the money they were pissing up against the wall.

He knew consultancy for government was largely a massive sham, and made sure that the entire political class felt the heat over the PwC scandal.

Fraser patiently explained this all to me over many conversations. He was a kind and gentle teacher, never condescending, forever keen to get on with the job.

Everywhere I turn I see reminders of him. Texts and messages of stories, of opportunities to take, of policies we could pursue. Of necessary work to be done.

We’d talk about the state of things, what was wrong with the world, speculate about which members of caucus were in the CIA. He even knew more about footy than me, and he didn’t seem to pay it much attention.

Of course Fraser was so much more than just a staffer. He was a father to four, a mentor to many, and an absolute trailblazer for the Greens in Victoria. And besides that he was a freakishly good musician. I never got to see his little studio setup but in my mind’s eye it is absurdly neat, full of technically complex machinery and the music he produced, sublime.

He had an uncanny ability to get things done. Not in the dreary, centrist, nothing-better-is-possible way, but in a way that recognised that meaningful change is possible if you work out where the pressure points are.

Fraser held a special and righteous hatred for the SDA. He wrote an absolutely scorching speech for our boss Nick about the shoppies before he even started working in our office.

Nothing pissed him off more than those who used progressive movements for their own self promotion or their own regressive ends.

I don’t want to keep working without Fraser’s guiding influence and imposing intelligence. But that’s self-indulgent, and the kind of self absorption I know he wouldn’t abide. Sooner or later I’ll get back to work and try to use his zeal and intelligence as a guiding light.

Last week, my friend Fraser died. I miss him dearly.

Pat Caruana is a staff member of Greens Senator Nick McKim.

Funeral information for Fraser Brindley can be found here.