Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (born January 13, 1911), Australian politician, was Premier of the Australian state of Queensland from 1968 to 1987, which made him undoubtably the state's most electorally successful Premier. His outstandingly populist and also authoritarian style made an indelible impact both within Queensland and also elsewhere within Australia.
Bjelke-Petersen is currently hospitalised, in extremely poor health. Medical opinion is that he has at most a few days left of life.
Early life
Bjelke-Petersen was born in Dannevirke in the Manawatu region of New Zealand, and lived in Waipukurau, a small town in Hawke's Bay. Bjelke-Petersen's parents were both Danish immigrants, and his father was a Lutheran pastor. In 1913 the family left for Australia, moving to Kingaroy in western Queensland.
Bjelke-Petersen worked as a peanut farmer and land-clearing contractor before being elected as a Country Party member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly in 1946. The Australian Labor Party had held power in Queensland since 1932 and Bjelke-Petersen spent eleven years as an Opposition member.
Rise to dominance
In 1957, following a split in the Labor Party, the Country Party came to power, with the Liberal Party as a junior coalition partner. Bjelke-Petersen then became a minister in 1963 and held office through until 1968, when he was elected leader of the Country Party and became Premier (on 8 August 1968).
Bjelke-Petersen's government became legendary for its dominance of the state, aided by an electoral malapportionment heavily favouring votes in country areas. This was known as the "Bjelke-mander" but it in fact was a more democratic refinement of a system that was introduced by the Labor Party in 1949. The lack of a state upper house (since its abolition in 1922) allowed executive decisions to then be swiftly implemented. With Labor weak and chronically divided in Queensland throughout the 1960s and '70s, Bjelke-Petersen went on and won a series of election victories, at the expense of his Liberal coalition partners as much as Labor. Typically the Country Party would gain fewer votes than either Labor or Liberal, but those votes would be spread out across the many rural electorates, giving the Country Party more seats than the Liberals and thus making them the senior coalition partner. Together they had more seats in Parliament than Labor, allowing Bjelke-Petersen to govern as Premier of a State in which he had received only 20% of the votes (using the figures for the 1972 election).
Bjelke-Petersen's government presided a period of rapid development in Queensland. Major infrastructure projects were commenced. Bjelke-Petersen abolished state inheritance taxes, leading to a steady flow of retired people moving from the southern states of Victoria and New South Wales to Queensland, particularly the Gold Coast. All other Australian states and territories abolished this tax by 1981 in attempt to stem the flow of people to Queensland. The rapid rise in population in the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast led to a building boom that has lasted for three decades. Queensland was also aided by preferential funding arrangements that saw a greater proportion of federal government grant money going to Queensland at the expense of New South Wales and Victoria.
Bjelke-Peterson was remarkably successful at manipulating media coverage, using paid-for advertorials on commercial networks and fobbing off journalists with irrelevant non-answers, particularly those from the southern states (Queensland's dislike of "southern interference" is well-known in Australia and is used shamelessly by Queensland politicians). His catchphrase answer to such queries, "Don't you worry about that" was widely parodied. The government was despised in left-wing circles for its intolerant approach to political protest, with draconian laws banning street demonstrations, and extensive Special Branch monitoring of suspected subversives, including not only Labor Party politicians, but also National Party figures who had incurred his displeasure. Bjelke-Petersen regularly accused political opponents of being covert communists bent on anarchy, and his forceful rhetoric won him particularly high approval among conservative and rural voters.
The Bjelke-Petersen government saw a politicisation of the Police and public service unprecedented even in Queensland, which long had featured domineering executive branches. Bjelke-Petersen cultivated a close relationship with the police service, often at the expense of the relevant Minister for Police. In 1976, after atttempting to initiate inquiries into police corruption and reform the police force, Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod resigned, alleging interference by Bjelke-Petersen with his position. Bjelke-Petersen had him replaced as Commissioner by the relatively junior Terry Lewis, who worked closely and directly with Bjelke-Petersen on a wide variety of matters, and who would later be revealed to be corrupt by the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
In 1975 Bjelke-Petersen played what later turned out to be a key role in the political crisis which brought down the federal Labor government of Gough Whitlam. When a Labor Senator died, he rejected Labor's nominee to fill the vacancy, Mal Colston (whose appointment would, under normal circumstances, have been a formality) in favour of an anti-Whitlam Labor Party member, Patrick Field, thus altering the balance in the Senate and helping to make it possible for the Liberal Party led by Malcolm Fraser to block supply and bring Whitlam down.
In 1974 the Country Party changed its name to the National Party and began contesting seats in metropolitan Brisbane against the Liberals. In 1983 the Liberal Party tried to assert itself against the Nationals, and as a result Bjelke-Petersen broke off the coalition agreement. At the 1983 state election, the Nationals won a majority in their own right, virtually wiping the Liberals out.
Downfall
Bjelke-Petersen's run of dominance came to an end in the late 1980s, when investigative reporting by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program Four Corners brought to light evidence of widespread corruption in both the Queensland Police force and the National Party government. The subsequent two-year-long Commission of Inquiry into "Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct", chaired by barrister Tony Fitzgerald (the Fitzgerald Inquiry), led eventually to the Police Commissioner and several government ministers being convicted for corruption and sentenced to prison terms. At his appearances before the Inquiry, Bjelke-Petersen's standing was damaged when he displayed his ignorance of concepts such as the separation of powers doctrine. Bjelke-Petersen himself was ultimately prosecuted for perjury, but following a hung jury (claimed to be due to the jury foreman, a former National Party member) the prosecution declined to proceed with a retrial and the matter was dropped.
As these events unfolded, Bjelke-Petersen made an extraordinary political move, launching a campaign for the Prime Ministership, working against the Nationals' usual coalition partner, the Liberal Party (under the leadership of John Howard). The Joh for Canberra campaign was of significant benefit to the incumbent Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.
As a result of the corruption revealed by the Fitzgerald inquiry, Bjelke-Petersen was deposed as state National Party leader on November 26 1987, but refused to resign as Premier. Instead he asked the Governor, Sir Walter Campbell to dismiss all the other ministers in his government. When Campbell refused, Bjelke-Petersen finally resigned on 1 December 1987. At the next election Labor returned to office after 32 years in opposition.
The Special Prosecutor responsible decided not to retry him, on the basis of his advancing age, frail health, and the difficulty of a fair trial (and reaching a verdict) in the blaze of publicity surrounding not only the case but the original jury. Reaching his decision the prosecutor stated that "In such a case, the fact that the trial of such a person ended with a deadlocked jury would probably be accepted as a proper conclusion to the prosecution, because it could be seen as a reflection of the fact that there remains in the community people of strong views both for and against the accused." [1].
Post-Premiership
In 2003, Bjelke-Petersen re-appeared in the public spotlight when he filed a lawsuit seeking $338 million in damages as a result of lost superannuation and harm to his business interests allegedly caused by the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Despite the proven corruption of some within Bjelke-Petersen's Government, he personally remained a popular figure in Queensland, demonstrated by the willingness of the Labor Premier Peter Beattie to be photographed with his predecessor quite frequently.
By early 2004 Bjelke-Petersen, aged 93, was reported to be in very poor physical health, being confined to a wheelchair and suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease. On March 3, 2004, his family said that he was on his deathbed and that they "were preparing for the worst". However, a year later, the bed-ridden Sir Joh reached his 94th birthday and was reported as having enjoyed himself by his wife Flo. Worry about Sir Joh's health again rose about a month later when he was hospitalised suffering from breathing problems and his pneumonia, from which he succesfully recovered.
In 2005 Bjelke-Petersen's health again came into the news, with the Courier-Mail reporting on 19 April that the hospitalised Bjelke-Petersen was unable to swallow and close to death. [2]. On April 21 the newspaper reported that he was not expected to live through the night [3].
Imminent death
Currently, Sir Joh is receiving palliative care at the South Burnett Community Health Centre in his home town of Kingaroy. His wife Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen and a number of other family members are by his side. Premier Peter Beattie has announced that Bjelke-Petersen will receive a state funeral and the family plans to bury him on his property at Kingaroy.
Last updated: 05-23-2005 00:44:21
