With all that’s happening in politics in Australia and globally, it seems a strange time to resurrect the memory of one of our most bizarre and disruptive leaders. Especially one who lost power nearly four decades ago, and who died two decades ago, in 2005.
Rest in peace, Sir Joh (Johannes) Bjelke-Petersen, aka Queensland’s Christian-right “hillbilly dictator”, because your life was one of political conflict, corruption and controversy. And yet your ghost of influence lives on, haunting Australian politics with echoes of a mining and property developer-friendly morals crusader who crushed community dissent with police power while turning a blind eye to rampant corruption in the force. Your own deal with the devil.
Old king coal
Stan streaming service’s new documentary Joh: Last King of Queensland was a must-watch for me. His regime dominated my school years, brief university days and early journalism career in the sunshine state (otherwise known as Australia’s “police state”) as Queensland premier from 1968 to 1987. But I wondered how relevant Joh’s story retold would be for Australians who haven’t grown up with a Queensland state of origin tag, particularly younger generations of voters. In the age of Donald Trump, it’s not like the world is so short of populist hard-right politicians with weird and controversial ways that we have to bring back dead ones.
Clearly the film-makers recognised this challenge, describing their feature-length documentary as a “timely examination of progress, power, corruption and Joh’s complex legacy”. Much is made of a quotable quote from veteran Queensland and subsequently NSW political journalist Quentin Dempster, a prominent Joh-watcher, to the effect that “looking back, Joh wrote the playbook for Trump”.
Maybe so, in parts. But there’s a world of difference between the religiously observant, upwardly mobile country bumpkin Joh, who made his early money land clearing and aerial crop dusting, and Trump, the sleazy New York property developer turned reality TV star turned two-time American president.
Sus Russ
Joh certainly was a prototype for today’s ultra-conservatives, with US-style MAGA movement overtones: virulently anti-leftist, anti-abortion, anti-intellectual, opposed to Indigenous land rights, aiming always to make Queensland great, fight the Canberra-based “deep state” equivalent, and protect right-thinking Queenslanders from the machinations of “southern homosexuals”. If he could have built a great big beautiful wall at the border with NSW he would have — except he needed tourists and migrants from the dreaded southern states to enrich the Gold Coast property developer “white shoe brigade” that helped keep him in power and lined his ministers’ pockets.
My personal favourite minister was the late Russ Hinze, a Gold Coast local who I investigated extensively for the south-of-the-border National Times and later for The Sydney Morning Herald. Hinze died before corruption charges could catch up with him.
Dubbed the “colossus of roads and Queensland’s heavyweight multi-minister for everything”, the outsized Hinze personified ministerial conflict of interest. As roads minister, he was the state’s biggest gravel producer, and once had a highway off-ramp relocated to be adjacent to the drive-in bottle-shop at a pub he owned. As local government and planning minister, he was a major property developer. As racing minister, he ran one of the state’s biggest racehorse studs. And as police minister, he was one of the state’s biggest crooks.
Follow the money
In 1986 I confronted him at his sprawling estate in the Gold Coast hinterland with corporate affairs department records I’d unearthed which showed hundreds of thousands of dollars in “loans” from prominent Gold Coast property developers to his private companies. These had been systematically “written off”, turning them into “gifts”.
Hinze accused me of having leaked information from the Australian Taxation Office, apparently because he’d been declaring the blatant bribes as income. It subsequently emerged through the groundbreaking Fitzgerald corruption inquiry — which ultimately played a key role in bringing down Joh, Hinze and top police figures — that his accountant had mistakenly filed the bribe payments information with corporate affairs, putting it on the public record, when it was meant to go to the always confidential tax office. Oops.
Queensland was like that back in the day. Sunny one day, rotten to the core the next.
Aspects of the regime’s downfall could be attributed to a bitter feud between Hinze and Joh’s svengali-like adviser on financial and business matters, the late Sir Edward “Top-level Ted” Lyons. As Hinze and Lyons leaked and counter-leaked against one another, they exposed too many secrets, puncturing once-tight defences.
Every inch the star
The quest for relevance and relatability is also why the Joh film-makers cast celebrated actor Richard Roxburgh, star of the morally outrageous ABC television show Rake. Roxburgh has also played ultra-corrupt cop Roger Rogerson, imprisoned foreign correspondent Peter Greste, and now Joh in all his mangled English glory. (His Lutheran minister father, of Dane heritage, raised his children speaking Danish as their first language, despite living in Queensland and for a brief period New Zealand, where Joh was born in 1911.)
It’s surprising how many vestiges of Joh remain to this day. Not the corruption, to be clear, but the conservatism, some of the style, and even some of the characters.
Clive Palmer, the Trump-trumpeting mining billionaire who plays politics with his money, was a key supporter of the messy and eventually aborted “Joh for Canberra/Joh for PM” campaign in 1987, and had a stint as media director for the Queensland Nationals under Joh. Gina Rinehart, also a Trump fan, is linked to Joh’s legacy via her father, the late Lang Hancock. Hancock was a close friend of Joh’s and a generous donor to the Queensland Nationals during Joh’s time.
Bob Katter, the eponymous Katter Australia Party’s sole federal MP, was a state MP and a minister in Joh’s governments. Senator Pauline Hanson, founder of the self-titled Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, genuflects to the iconic conservative memory of Joh and his wife of more than 50 years, Lady Flo (Florence) Bjelke-Petersen, who actually did go to Canberra as a Nationals senator (1981-93). Barnaby Joyce — once a Queensland Nationals and Liberal-National Party (LNP) federal senator (2005-13) well after the Joh era, before becoming a NSW federal MP (2013-) — is the obvious inheritor of Joh’s country-bumpkin campaigning mode.
Country club
The Queensland LNP, now a dominant force in Liberal-National coalition politics, is strong to this day because of Joh’s legacy.
Above all, Joh showed Australia what coalition government looks like when norms are inverted and the Nationals are top dog and the Liberals the underdog, made possible by a long-standing electoral “gerrymander” that meant a country vote was more powerful than a city one. Hold that thought. We don’t need to repeat that experiment again.
Johisms run rampant, dont you worry about that is one. Abbott took lessons from him I bet. Dont think Qld has changed all that much corruption wise. Seems endemic no matter what party is in power. The LNP just seem to be able to hide it better.
I lived in country Queensland during his ‘reign’. It was amazing the number of Queenslanders who admitted that they knew he was corrupt, but as he looked after them, it was okay. And most importantly, he kept the southerners away and Brisbanites at bay.
I often assert that, like many others, I “escaped” from Queensland in the 1960’s. Even worse I went to Canberra then later Victoria so was consorting with dreaded southerners. People may think that Bjelke got things done, but, by corrupt processes and corrupt scary law and order quite apart from the racism. No fond memories for me thanks.
I worked for Sanctuary Cove resort developer (and fervent Joh/Russ supporter) Mike Gore during those years. Gore never wore white shoes.
The best story I heard involving Russ Hinze was after divorcing his first wife in the early 1980s, and remarrying again after the divorce was finalised, contacted his favourite car dealer and purchased a marriage gift for his new wife, a brand new motor vehicle (some say it was a Mercedes), which was to be delivered to missus No 2. The story goes that the car dealer wasn’t quite up to date with Russ’s living arrangements and had the car delivered to his previous wife, who supposedly was chuffed with the gift and refused to give it back. True or not? Cant confirm, but it was certainly going around the traps back at that time.
Great story .. and I prefer to believe it true
Wife no2 was a former admin assistant and would have known too much
Had to marry her so she couldn’t give evidence .. no love there on either side!
Unbelievable the lack of quality in politicians of that era
I met Joh – nothing much more than a ‘Hi, how are ya’ – in the editorial office of the Gympie Times at the tail end of the 1980 state election campaign. As a blow in from NSW, I was very familiar with ‘TV’ Joh, but quite surprised at how low key he was when interviewed by print journos. Yet, as soon as we all walked outside and the cameras started rolling, he instantly switched. And to think he was still in there swinging for another 7 years!!
I recall Russ Hinze being interviewed about his understanding of conflict of interest in relation to his portfolios. His reply was along the lines of “it makes sense that I’m the racing Minister. I’m the only member of the Cabinet who owns racehorses. It isn’t a conflict of interest; it’s a convergence of interests.” It goes with Joh’s understanding of Separation of Powers, which in his mind was not a safeguard, but an impediment to good governance, or at least his understanding of how to get things done. Got a lot of laughs south of the border where Joh was consistently ridiculed (not without reason) and underestimated. Lang Hancock said Joh was the only Australian politician worth feeding and it seems Joh was very well fed.
Even Joh couldn’t stop his power base getting smaller and smaller until his own party turfed him out, with the farce of him digging in for a final stand and refusing to leave the Premier’s office. Somehow I can’t see that happening to Trump.
Met Joh (and Flo) at a funeral I conducted in Hervey Bay. Could see why the people loved him. Very personable; knew everyone’s name. That of course, doesn’t take away from the corruption and stink that surrounded him.
Great article thank you Murray. My memories of Bjelke-Petersen and Russell Hinze are the stuff of nightmares. I grew up in Queensland and one incident that stands out is the disgraceful overnight demolition of the fabulous Bellevue Hotel in Brisbane. Jo’s connection to unlawful activity was always in the air and back then I never tired of arguing furiously with my parents about his criminality. Weirdly, they thought he was a saint. The stink remains forever! Congratulations to the makers of the new show!
Jo had a court case for corruption and he got off as 1 juror did not tell the judge that he was an LNP member and he insureed Jo got off when perhaps he should been found to be corruption
Back in 1984, during the Federal election campaign, Joh was in Perth, being interviewed on ABC radio. I was also in the studio, waiting my turn to be interviewed as a prospective Senator arguing for nuclear disarmament. When he came out of the studio, I was surprised at how short he was, then he surprised me by asking “What’s a nice girl like you doing getting mixed in grubby politics?” My reply was, “well, you don’t know that I’m a “nice girl” for a start, and why are still mixed up in politics if it’s so grubby?”
Then in 1985, when I made it into the Senate, I was in the company of Flo – an inoffensive grandmotherly type of pumpkin scone fame….. a recipe which I’ve just submitted for inclusion in a cookbook fundraiser for my grandchildren’s school.
I look forward to seeing the documentary!
The state still reeks of his characteristic bible thumping god botherers with hypocrisy writ large, probably Hanson’s hero and still manages to brutalise the environment and its people with mining activities that are clearly detrimental to everybody.
An AI summary of climate challenges is as follows “Queensland faces significant climate challenges, including increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like floods, droughts, heatwaves, and bushfires. These events are exacerbated by climate change, which is also leading to rising sea levels and changes in rainfall patterns. These changes pose risks to communities, the economy, and natural systems, requiring adaptation measures and proactive planning” not something that Liberals or National Party ever acknowledge.
It’s also the first state to scream bloody murder when it comes to impacts of weather events from mining activities and flooding, insisting on building towns and cities on flood zones and capricious rivers that flood regularly, town planning and developers still rotten and corrupt to the core, with Charters Towers being highly flood prone from these activities as well as the bastion of Gerry Harvey who makes his money from the very people he vilifies!
Not much has changed and that state still jails children, the recent expulsion of Dutton does not change the fact that that mind set of ‘control’ is still very much alive in the state of Queensland and potentially still needs another Fitzgerald enquiry.
The ignorance and failure of Indigenous rights and stolen children “Despite a national apology nearly two decades ago, Australia’s First Nations children are still being removed from their families of origin at alarming rates” still reeks of racism and the environment of political awakening and awareness says otherwise.
Great reading in the Comments. Having just read ‘Killing for Country’ by David Marr I was struck by the similarity of views, values etc from David Marr and the above. Looking forward to the Docco.
People who left Queensland during these times or who never lived here do not have the right to tell us how it was. We lived here during all that time. We were always afraid of the police. We had to watch out for them at night and hide if we saw them coming. We were arrested over and over again by them so that they could increase their arrest numbers. They came into our houses in the middle of the night if they wanted to and often did. Special Branch followed us down the footpath while we walked; took our photos; greeted us by name; passed all of that onto ASIO. We sat in the watchhouse overnight hoping they wouldn’t come into the cells and bash us. We couldn’t get jobs in the public service if our political records were known. We weren’t allowed to teach children about multiculturalism in schools even if there were rows of black and brown faces in the classroom. So many more things were banned. Brisbane was always different from the rest of the state. We always had to fight. We still have to put up with the prejudice of people from other states telling us we are stupid and ignorant. We still think they are the ones who are ignorant and often stupid.
Yes, Joh was short. When I walked beside him at a Fence Painting event for a Brisbane Festival, he pushed me into the gutter because I wore high heels. BTW, does anyone know what happened to that damn journos’ chair in his office? The one Allan Callaghan had both front legs shortened so any reporter’s bottom slid inexorably forward while trying to take notes (and make sense of them)?