The Nobel Peace laureate, who was elected South Africa's first black president after spending nearly three decades in jail, died at his Johannesburg home late on Thursday surrounded by his family, after a long battle against a lung infection.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser says he remembers Nelson Mandela as "a tall, spare man, stood very straight".
"You immediately knew that this was somebody substantial," Mr Fraser told SBS's Gareth Boreham.
"It wasn't just anyone walking into the room. And it was Mandela. And there was already a mythology about Mandela...and he said to me vey formally, 'Mr Fraser is Donald Bradman still alive?'"
Mr Fraser says Mandela's role in the anti-apartheid struggle was critical.
"They looked to Mandela for leadership, for hope, for optimism, for courage," Mr Fraser said
"He knew that to build a South Africa you had to allow the Afrikaners to keep the things that were important to Afrikaners.
"How can you have recoinlation if you're going to take symbols that are important to people away from them?"
Click on the video above to watch the full interview.
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