Tim Fischer, a former National Party leader, deputy prime minister and Trade Minister, and one of the few authentic characters to emerge from modern Australian politics since the millennium, has died from leukemia. He was 73.

A man who had a significant impact on Australia’s trade performance in the late 90s also held the line on a tough gun control regime after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre and stared down a far-right challenge to the National Party’s position in regional Australia from Pauline Hanson’s nascent One Nation Party.