In 1986, the year after he officially became an Eminent Person courtesy of both the United Nations and the Commonwealth, Australia’s 22nd prime minister lost his trousers in a Memphis hotel. Alone, and adrift, the specifics surrounding that event still remain opaque – but what is more intriguing is what a perfect metaphor the mystery in Memphis is for the enigma of Malcolm Fraser. Indeed, the event itself can almost be seen as a defining moment – when the former authoritarian, Cold War warrior and slayer of socialist profligacy found a new pair of trousers to slip into: those of the greenie ‘eminent elder’ and trendy, Pilger-esque progressive agitator.

Mr Fraser was literally a towering figure in Australian history. He towered over most people he spoke to, he towered over his party for many years, and he towered over the greatest constitutional crisis in our history. In 1975, at a Liberal party rally shortly before he was handed power by John Kerr, he was photographed with arms outstretched above the crowd looking more like a ‘70s rock god than a politician from rural Victoria. Throughout his prime ministership, his Easter Island caricature was the truest evocation of his persona – granite-like stubbornness, strong of jaw and implacable in the face of an unbelievably hostile environment. Indeed, hard as it is to imagine now, the level of vitriol and hostility expressed towards him from the undergraduate left in the years following the Dismissal was far greater than anything John Howard or Tony Abbott have had to endure.

The legacy of Mr Fraser is one that will be debated for years to come. There was the ferocious right-wing warrior of the Cold War period, who is purported to have advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Indochina, but then went on to become a fierce opponent of our alliance with the US. There was the freedom-loving anti-apartheid activist, whose feel-good actions permitted the rise of one of the world’s most loathsome and bloody dictators, Robert Mugabe. There was the friend to the refugees and asylum-seekers of this world who nonetheless sat idly by on his hands during Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor because, er, his bureaucrats told him to. There was the proud, Tory patriarch and blueblood who became an avowed republican. There was the ‘man of compassion’ lauded for his ability to reconcile with Gough Whitlam, yet who treated many in his own party with spiteful bitterness. There was the federalist who refused to help Bob Brown save the Franklin river who then went on to become an avid and vocal supporter of Sarah Hanson-Young. For every pair of political pants this enigmatic individual pulled on, at some point in his life he discarded them and donned an entirely mis-matching pair.

At the end of the day, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the traumatic events of 11 November 1975 lay at the heart of the Fraser metamorphosis. How much easier to be loved and adored – and more importantly, forgiven – by your enemies than to carry on being a figure of hatred and opprobrium. How much better to be a ‘living treasure’ than to be forever ‘Kerr’s cur’. How much more gratifying to accept approval, magnanimity and forgiveness from old foes than to display generosity to your successors.

If Mr Fraser’s legacy is a complex and frustrating one, it is no more complex nor frustrating than the man himself.

In stark contrast, the legacy of another towering figure who died this week needs no dissecting. It is writ larger than the skyscrapers of Singapore in steel and glass, in the vibrant economy and stunningly successful social experiment of the bustling island state he created. Vale Lee Kuan Yew.

And vale Malcolm Fraser.