At least Australia had no Trump or Bolsonaro! Oh really???

Joh and Flo Bjelke Petersen

Courier Mail, 1996

The STATE politician Johannes Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1911-2005) ser­ved as Queensland Premier for 20 years. He was born in New Zealand and immigrated with his Dan­ish Lutheran pastor fam­ily in 1913. In Qld Joh left school at 13, remaining a peanut farmer at his Kingaroy home where he pioneered aerial spraying and seeding

Joh entered Parliament as a Country Party-National Party member in 1947. He first entered the Cabinet as Min­ister for Works & Housing in 1963, and became Premier in 1968. The controver­sial Bjelke-Petersen dominated Qld politics for 20 years, an out­spoken reactionary with clear hostility to civil rights, environment, soc­ial wel­fare, org­anised unions and land rights for Aborigines.

His favouritism towards big business in Qld was even clearer and like many pop­ul­ists, he was impatient and con­fron­t­ational with parl­iam­en­tary proced­ur­es: he abused parl­iam­entary ar­rangements, denied the Opposition its le­gitimate access to facilities, suppres­sed deb­ate, denied in­form­ation to the media and often for­ced ill-conceived, hastily drafted legis­lat­ion through Parliament.

Queensland was the only Australian state that didn’t have an Upper House; its unicameral parliament meant the normal checks and bal­an­ces were absent. Worse still were: the weak Labour Party opposit­ion; Bjelke-Petersen's total control over his Conservative Liberal Party coalition partner; and his dominat­ion of the Cabinet room.

In the tradition of agrarian populist politicians, Joh did­n’t worry about his inability to articulate. His fav­our­ite answer to ANY question: Now, don't you worry about that

Among crises that brought him to attention at a national le­vel, in 1971 he declared a state of emergency in Queensland as a re­action to demonstrations against touring South African Rugby Union Springboks.

In 1972-5, Bjelke-Petersen clashed with the Federal Labour Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Joh established himself as a maj­or political figure and a strong voice for states' rights, ded­icating himself to one cause: the obstruction and destruction of the first Federal Labour government since 1949. In 1975 he played a key part in under­min­ing that Labour government; in defiance of est­ab­lished tradition, Bjelke-Petersen selected his own candidate to fill a cas­ual Senate vacancy in the Federal Parliament, thwarting Labour's at­tempt to gain a Senate majority. His plot was crit­ical to the events leading to Gough Whitlam being sacked as Prime Minister in Nov 1975.

Police dragged protesters into gaol

"How far with Bjelke-Petersen go?"

Nation Review, 1977

Bjelke-Petersen continued his tough right-wing policies. In Sept 1977 he banned political protests, leading to cl­ash­es with uranium protesters, unionists, students, liberals and mostly women. He showed little concern for heritage and environmental is­s­ues, attracting public fury over the 1979 dem­olition of Brisbane's hist­oric Bellevue Hotel, and favouring oil drilling IN the Great Barrier Reef. He revealed a mor­alistic stroke, ban­ning Play­boy magazine, opposing school sex educ­ation and condom ven­d­ing mach­ines, and trying to ban women flying interstate for abortions 1980. He tried to ban gay teachers from being employed in schools.

Bellevue Hotel Brisbane

built 1885, demolished 1972

State Library Qld

His wife Florence/Flo was seen as an integral part of Joh's polit­ic­al life. As an extension of his political perf­orm­ance, Flo was un­wav­ering in her partisanship. She was elected to the Federal Senate in 1980 as a National Party member for Queensland, commanding resp­ect in her own right while being seen as Joh's “Federal rep”.

He also rel­ied on corrupt­ police to prop up his govern­ment. Dissenters faced police brutality in the streets. Repressive laws that banned protests meant tak­ing to the streets could result in im­prisonment for protesters and the media. In 1980, despite crit­ic­ism by lawyers and civil lib­er­t­ies groups, Joh’s new Pol­ice Act further empowered the police.

In 1983 Bjelke-Petersen led his National Party to a vic­tory where he formed a one-party state government, rather than gov­erning in coal­ition with the Conservative Liberal Party. Owing to Qld’s electoral gerrymander, small populated rural el­ect­orates dominated highly pop­ulated urban ones i.e the National Party won with 39% of the vote, while Labour lost on 44%. This biased system, a Bjelke-mander, oper­ated in total def­iance of the principle of one person one vote.

In 1986 Bjelke-Petersen sensed a loss of direction at the Federal level among the con­servatives. He led a campaign, Joh for PM, to have himself elected to Federal Parliament. But Jo’s bid for pow­er split the Federal Coal­ition.

In May 1987, ABC tv prog­r­amme Four Corners aired the first public allegations of organised crime and police corruption in Qld. Cap­it­alising on the Conservat­ive’s internal dissent, Labour’s Bob Hawke easily won the 1987 Federal election!

The story didn't end for Bjelke-Petersen. In Sep 1991, he was tried for corruption and perjury, but a hung jury set Joh free. [The jury foreman, a member of Bjelke-Petersen's National Party, had assisted in fund-raising for Joh’s legal expenses]. Soon the Qld government amended the Jury Act and set up a permanent criminal justice commission.

The media announced the resignation of premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen 

and police commissioner Terry Lewis.

Courier-Mail, 1987

Summary
Bjelke-Petersen’s reign as Queensland’s premier began in 1968 and ended ingloriously in 1987 with the Fitzgerald Inquiry in­to pol­ice corruption. Over 2 years, they un­cov­ered a deep web of corr­upt­ion implicating many at the high­est levels of government and police.

Joh was certainly guided by a shrewd politic­al aw­are­ness. He styled himself as a defender of a unique Qld sens­ib­il­ity and scorned the pro­g­res­sive states, using fear and prejud­ice for el­ec­toral gain. Qu­een­s­l­and’s longest-serving premier left a difficult, undemocr­at­ic leg­acy.

Many thanks to Your Dictionary, ABC News and The Conversation