AN AUDIENCE with the Pope has wrapped up Tim Fischer's posting as Australia's first Rome-based ambassador to the Vatican and ended one of the most remarkable careers in Australian public life.
The former army conscript and farmer was not the first politician to lead his party nor the first to reach the lofty post of deputy prime minister, but he was certainly the first to do so with an autistic disorder.
"In hindsight, I came to realise that I have always had a very mild autism spectrum disorder that went undiagnosed for most of my life," Mr Fischer said this week.
"By dint of education, army, family and faith I managed to sublimate the condition. That doesn't mean it goes away, just that you learn to cope with it"
And cope he did.
After three years military conscription, including a stint in Vietnam, Fischer farmed at Boree Creek in the NSW Riverina before being elected at the age of 25 to the NSW Legislative Assembly for what was then called the Country Party.
After 13 years in state politics he moved to the federal seat of Farrer in 1984, defeating former leader Ian Sinclair for the leadership of the renamed National Party in 1990.
Instinctively media-savvy, he quickly became widely recognised, standing out from the parliamentary field with his Akubra hat, staccato speaking style, occasionally mangled English, and a genial sincerity that left even the best haters in Labor's ranks finding it hard to dislike him.
When the Pope opened the new Domus Australia pilgrimage centre in Rome last year, Fischer was as recognisable as ever, his black Akubra catching the eye amid the Pope's white cap, the red caps of George Pell and two other cardinals and the purple caps of 30 or so Australian bishops.
Fischer married Judy Brewer in 1992, and it was their son Harrison's diagnosis with a moderate autistic disorder that led him to leave politics in 2001 and to recognise his own condition. Autism limits the ability to communicate and relate to other people.
"One of the indications is developing an intense curiosity and great interest in certain subjects. In my case, I suppose that would include my interest in the Kingdom of Bhutan and in trains as a mode of transport and in agriculture."
He has written a book about Bhutan and has visited the Himalayan kingdom many times. He will stop off there yet again for a brief working visit on his way back to Australia from Rome later this month.
His love of trains has produced another two books and became a strong feature of his time in Rome. With Judy and their sons Harrison, now 18, and Dominic, 16, visiting Rome only twice a year, Fischer spent many weekends on solo expeditions around the European rail network, from Belgrade to Bordeaux and Britain.
His favourite trip was the Bernina Express from Tirano over the Alps to near Davos.
Last year, Fischer even managed to convince Vatican officials to open the Pope's own rarely used railway platform for a fundraising trip by a steam train. Dubbed the Caritas Express, the journey raised money for Italian earthquake victims and other charitable causes.
Autism NSW was one of several charities Fischer helped after his retirement from parliament in 2001.
From 2004-07, he was chairman of Tourism Australia and in 2008 then prime minister Kevin Rudd asked Fischer -- the most senior Catholic in Australian conservative politics since Joseph Lyons left Labor in 1931 to form the United Australia Party, the precursor to the Liberal Party -- to open a full-time embassy to the Vatican.
The job had previously been combined with ambassadorships in other European countries and several senior Australian diplomats privately considered it a folly to spend millions of dollars on the Vatican embassy when Australian diplomatic missions elsewhere were closing or shrinking.
The new embassy sits on the top floor of an office block beside the Tiber River, with a commanding view of St Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel roof, from where a chimney emitting black or white smoke announces the success or failure of a papal election.
One payoff from this investment of scarce diplomatic funds was a boost to the standing of Rudd and the ALP among Catholic voters. When thousands of Australians jammed into an auditorium a few hundred metres from St Peter's in 2010 to celebrate the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, the guest of honour, Rudd, was cheered like a rock star even though he had already lost his job.
A legitimate benefit of the investment, according to some of the more hard-headed supporters of the new embassy, has been the chance to gain some Vatican diplomatic support for Australian goals, ranging from a seat on the UN Security Council to the right to host an expensive international science project, the Square Kilometre Array telescope.
"The need for a small, compact embassy is absolutely justified," Fischer says. "It has been three interesting, uplifting and useful years for Team Australia and the causes we have been asked to advance, such as interfaith dialogue and food security. I guess my focus was to put Australia on the map in the Holy See and to boost our profile . . . My successor will make waves in their own way, but I believe we should be represented here whilst ever there is a G20."
At 65, Fischer says his wife and sons will be happy his career in public life is over. He will concentrate on helping Judy run poll Hereford cattle at their farm between Beechworth and Bright in Victoria. "My job will be deputy assistant farmhand. I will work with one or two charities and do some writing, but I will avoid too many off-farm appointments. After 30 years in parliament, bookended by three years in the army and three years in Rome, it is basta, as the Italians say. Enough!"