In an earlier post I drew attention to the fact that all the commentary about Joh Bjelke-Petersen, favourable and unfavourable, concentrated on his contribution to politics, and not on his pre-political career in farming.
Off the top of my head I knew about his contribution to brigalow scrub clearing, but this morning Radio National’s Breakfast programme further redressed the deficit in an interview with Greg Borschmann, one of the show’s producers taking a turn on the other end of an interview.
In 2001 Borschmann recorded a series of conversations with Petersen for the National Archives, and the interview is well worth a listen for an insight into Petersen’s character and interesting errata for your next trivia night. For example I knew Joh had health problems because of childhood polio, but I didn’t realise he suffered lung damage from peanut dust caused by one of his first business successes – threshing peanuts.

Many Queenslanders, particularly ALP voters, think that Peter Beattie has a lot in common with Joh Bjelke-Petersen, according to some of our yet to be published research work. Not a view I share. But I think Joh would approve of Beattie’s masterful move to appoint two committees to inquire into the Queensland health system rather than one.
Bjelke-Petersen always held to the maxim that you should never appoint a committee of inquiry unless you knew the answer you wanted it to come to. It was the deliberate flouting of this rule by Joh’s deputy, Bill Gunn, while he was Acting Premier and Joh was out of the country, that brought us the Fitzgerald Committee of Inquiry and caused Bjelke-Petersen’s downfall. Actually, I’m sure that in setting up the inquiry Gunn actually did know the answer, and in my own mind I’ve always branded this seeming act of political naivety as the “Gunnpowder and treason plot”.
By appointing two Liberal Party supporters – Tony Morris QC and Sir Llew Edwards – to run one of his inquiries into Queensland Health Beattie at face value appears to be holding a Gunn to his own head. Morris is a regular legal gunslinger in the Queensland Liberals’ version of Dodge City, having most recently ridden shotgun for Russell “The Rodent” Galt in his challenge to the Moggill preselection.
Louie “The Lie” Edwards (a nickname given to him by parliamentary colleagues) was State Parliamentary Liberal Party Leader and Treasurer to Bjelke-Petersen, and must at the moment be reading with amazement how Joh was single-handedly responsible for a number of things that Edwards himself would lay claim to.
But the Liberal-led inquiry is limited in scope to inquiring into Bundaberg Hospital and the Queensland Medical Board. It will have public hearings and will likely make some harsh judgements, but most likely only of local health bureaucrats, and the Queensland Medical Board.
The other inquiry is to be conducted by Peter Forster, will be a general review of the health bureaucracy but will hear and receive submissions in private. Forster is a consultant who conducted a review of the Department of Families last year and was involved in the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry.
All of the publicity has surrounded the Morris Inquiry. I am sure this is the way that the Premier planned it. The problems in health are endemic, and if Forster’s review is properly resourced its report will not be favourable. However, no-one will notice it, because the public will be diverted by the public hearings and probably sensational evidence given to the Liberal-led inquiry.
All of this will reinforce Beattie’s reputation for being prepared to take the tough decisions, impartially, even against the interests of his own party, at the same time as the really damaging stuff is managed under the carpet.

I see that Brian Laver, Dan O’Neil, Garry McLennan, and Sam Watson are planning to picket Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s funeral in Kingaroy next week. Joh would have approved.
There are two men that I learnt more from about political campaigning than any others – Wayne Swan and Joh Bjelke-Petersen. Swan showed me what to do – run a tightly focussed, disciplined campaign with a simple message incessantly repeated. Bjelke-Petersen showed me what not to do – in general the public aren’t interested in high principles and accusations of corruption, so run on the things they are interested in; and demonstrations and overt aggression are almost always counterproductive.
Joh loved demonstrations and went out of his way to provoke them because they helped to keep him in power – the demonstrators won no new converts and tended to push uncommitted voters Joh’s way.
If the mooted demonstration turns up at Joh’s funeral it will have the same effect as demonstrations did during his lifetime: more people than otherwise will feel sympathy for him and his family.
While generally on the side of the demonstrators, I learnt from their failures in the 70s and 80s. I’d like to think that the four organisers have too, and that they are just planning this for old times sake to help to give the old bastard a good send off. Fat chance. And the left wonder why they are irrelevant today!

This letter from Ryan MHR Michael Johnson, demonstrates the secret of his success – being completely up-front and unconventional, not to mention monomaniacal. I can think of no other MP who could have written this letter.
Essentially it is Johnson distributing his how-to-vote ticket for the coming Ryan Federal Electorate Council AGM. Most federal members will have a list of office bearers that they would prefer, but few would be so divisive, or presumptuous, as to print, let alone distribute it.
Most would also show a little more respect for the other elected representatives in the area. Johnson appears to have a feudal approach to local politics. He is the federal member, and therefore expects to control the federal electorate council and treat the other politicians who are meant to be serviced by that structure – the local state and council representatives – as vassals.
Interestingly, while Johnson is allegedly held in position by an ethnic branch-stack, the ticket shows little sign of that, at least judging by the surnames.
Johnson’s pitch for control of the FEC AGM is structured around making it a de facto preselection. It’s all about him. Central to this stratagem is a “them and us” tactic familiar to readers of 1984.
Johnson’s “proof” that he is at risk is handily provided by the Courier Mail, and can be viewed by clicking here. As I blogged at the time, the story has all the haulmarks of having been planted by Johnson – the Eastasia/Eurasia gambit for those familiar with the novel.
I hope he at least paid for the stamps himself.

Curiously, in all the tributes to Joh Bjelke-Petersen, no-one has mentioned his significant contribution to Queensland agriculture.
Press releases have lauded his long reign. They have credited him with starting Queensland’s coal industry. He is given the credit for the state’s tourism industry, and significantly raising the mean age by abolishing death duties. Joh was even apparently a feminist, creating the first woman cabinet minister in Queensland’s history. We know about his successful battle with polio.
Some things have been understandably ignored, such as his support for cancer fraud, Milan Brych, or the Horvath hydrogen engine. His enemies have dwelt on his record on human rights and democratic principles and institutions.
But why has no-one mentioned Joh’s contribution to agriculture? Joh entered parliament a wealthy man because of a very simple idea. He realised that if you attached a chain to two D9 tractors and dragged it between them you could clear a lot of brigalow scrub. This simple device allowed thousands of acres of Queensland brigalow to be opened for farming. Not an intricate idea, but it had a huge impact, some good and some bad, and it typifies the man for me.

WHEN you have observed politics for as long as I have – and participated in it – you get into the habit of comparing politicians, governments, and political eras.
Some weeks ago I offered the view that the Honourable De Anne Kelly, Federal Minister of State for Veterans Affairs and Minister Assisting the Defence Minister, is almost the most hopeless, and hapless, Minister I have come across.
I thought then that only the Honourable Delba Biri, Minister for Justice in the second Somare Government of PNG was worse. He was quite hopeless, and was regularly tripped up in Parliament by my then boss, the Opposition Leader, Iambakey Okuk,……..and Delba had been his driver when Okuk was a Minister in the first Somare Government!
I owe Delba Biri – if he is still with us – a humble apology.
He was an embarrassment, utterly out of his depth. But the more I observe Mrs De Anne’s Kelly’s “performance” the worse she looks. And poor old Delba looks better all the time.
The revelations over the weekend that Mrs Kelly signed a congratulatory letter to a high school student who had earlier died in a tragic accident when he was in the cadets – notwithstanding the fact she attended his funeral and signed the condolence book – is simply appalling.
It is appalling for the grieving family. And it is appalling that a Member of Parliament, representing a regional community where such tragic events are more widely known than they are in capital cities, could be so utterly negligent.
It is not the first time an MP has sent a letter to a deceased person. And it is truly pathetic that Mrs Kelly has sought to ease her culpability by trying to drag in a State Labor MP who did not attend the funeral, or, apparently, know the young man had died.
Over the last nine months or so I have watched with utter amazement at Mrs Kelly’s “performance” as a Minister. Her explanation of the hand outs to regional groups made when she held the low Office of Parliamentary Secretary have been truly awful.
Her handling of questions without notice has been painful. And the questioning from the Opposition has hardly been willowing!
Every possible device has been used to protect her from proper parliamentary scrutiny. But Mr Speaker Hawker, to his credit, has allowed at least some questioning of the Minister on her former responsibilities. And the more questions she has been asked the worse she has performed.
And as the Parliamentary Inquiry into the regional grants program proceeds, more doubts than ever are cast over the decisions she made as a Parliamentary Secretary.
But even as Minister for Veterans Affairs she has been found wanting.
When the Sea King helicopter crash occurred in Indonesia a few weeks ago, the community – not to mention the families of the servicemen and women who so tragically lost their lives – wanted a number of assurances, not the least being assurances about the compensation and benefits the families of those who died would receive.
There are a silence from the Federal Government for some days……….ensuring the Government got some highly unfavourable publicity, especially on radio. It required (once again) Prime Ministerial intervention to rescue the position.
When the Minister finally made a statement it was too late, and too little.
Like it or not, the issue of support for veterans, and for the families, of servicemen killed and injured on duty overseas, is now very much on the political agenda. And, at the Ministerial level, it could hardly be in more unsafe hands.
The Parliamentary Inquiry is highly to be highly critical of Mrs Kelly’s performance as Parliamentary Secretary responsible for the regional grants program.
That should provide the opportunity for John Howard and John Anderson to show her the door. But don’t bet on it!
And back to poor old Delba Biri. He was unsuited to the Justice portfolio in every way – uneducated, did not speak English, a first term MP.
So in a handicap race against Mrs Kelly you would surely give Delba Biri 30 metres start over a 100 metre course?
She is, to put it bluntly, just not up to the job!
She is the Member for Dawson…..the seat that turned so dramatically against the then Country Party in the 1960’s. While it has been held by the Nationals since 1975, the woeful performance of its current Member, especially as a Minister, must surely put the seat on the watch list at the next federal election.
There is no doubt Mrs Kelly built up a personal vote during her time on the backbench, when she could take pot shots at her own Government.
But I would not count on that saving her in the volatile political times we live in today.