By Rich Bowden:

The Federal Opposition has criticised the resignation of former prime minister Malcolm Fraser’s from the party after it was revealed he considered the Liberals had lurched too far to the right.

Mr Fraser, who was Australian prime minister in a Liberal/National coalition government from 1975 to 1983, has revealed he resigned from the Liberal party in December following the dumping of moderate leader Malcolm Turnbull in favour of the conservative Tony Abbott.

The Australian Financial Review reported that Mr Fraser considered the removal of Mr Turnbull, chiefly over his support for the Government’s emissions trading scheme, as instrumental in his decision to leave the party and had become disillusioned with the alleged racist overtones of its stance on asylum seekers.

Mr Fraser described the current leader Tony Abbott as “all over the place” on policy, said the AFR.

Mr Abbott himself was cautious when questioned over the resignation of one of his party’s leading elder statesmen.

“He obviously has a right to make his judgements about where he stands,” the Opposition Leader told Macquarie Radio.

Former Fraser advisor and Liberal MP Petro Georgiou told the ABC’s AM program Mr Fraser’s decision should be viewed with “great sadness.”

“I think Malcolm’s had a classical Menzies-ian view of the party and has been troubled by where he’s seen the party going over recent years,” he said.

“I think [his resignation] should be viewed with a great deal of sadness. It should be viewed as the action of a man who takes his convictions very seriously.”

However Fraser biographer Margaret Simons told ABC2 News Breakfast Mr Fraser’s resignation was over policy and shouldn’t be seen as an attack on Mr Abbott.

“I think it was really various straws which broke the camel’s back,” she said.

“The things that finally brought him to this decision were partly that people such as Petro Georgiou, who he felt very loyal to, were leaving … and also his disgust at the way Malcolm Turnbull was dealt with.”

Some Opposition frontbenchers though, have criticised the former PM for his actions.

Christopher Pyne described the resignation as “wrong,” saying “He’s entitled to his view, but I think he’s wrong,” while Opposition finance spokesman Andrew Robb told the ABC he was aware Mr Fraser and the Liberal party’s policy had been diverging for a number of years.

“Malcolm, for whatever reason, has been uncomfortable with lots of our positions for 20 years, 25 years,” he said.

“I don’t know what’s going through his head. We’ve become used to Malcolm disagreeing with our positions on many issues for nearly a quarter of a century.”

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