Johannes Bjelke-Petersen

Johannes Bjelke-Petersen
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1911 – 2005

Born13 January 1911 in Dannevirke, New ZealandDied23 April 2005 in Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia, aged 94

From 1933 Bjelke-Petersen worked land-clearing and peanut farming on his family's newly acquired second property near Kingaroy, Queensland. He went on to work as a contract land-clearer, investing the capital raised in farm equipment and natural resource exploration, and developed a technique for clearing scrub quickly by connecting a heavy anchor chain between two bulldozers. By the time he was 30 he was a prosperous farmer and businessman. He had left formal schooling at 14 to work with his mother on the farm.

Degrees

Family

Parents

CB Carl George Bjelke-Petersen 1869–1954 father MP Maren Poulsen d. 1970 mother

Spouse

FG Florence Isabel Gilmour 1920–2017 m. 31 May 1952

Places 14 locations

BirthWorkOtherMarriageDeath / burial

Timeline

1910s
Born 13 January 1911

Dannevirke, New Zealand
1930s
22
Occupation (Peanut farmer and land-clearing contractor) from 1933

Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia

From 1933 Bjelke-Petersen worked land-clearing and peanut farming on his family's newly acquired second property near Kingaroy, Queensland. He went on to work as a contract land-clearer, investing the capital raised in farm equipment and natural resource exploration, and developed a technique for clearing scrub quickly by connecting a heavy anchor chain between two bulldozers. By the time he was 30 he was a prosperous farmer and businessman. He had left formal schooling at 14 to work with his mother on the farm.

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1940s
35
Councillor, Kingaroy Shire Council 1946

Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia

Elected to the Kingaroy Shire Council in 1946, his first elected office, a year before entering the Queensland Legislative Assembly.

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36
Member for Nanango, Queensland Legislative Assembly 1947–1950

Nanango, Queensland, Australia

Elected to the Queensland Legislative Assembly for Nanango at the 1947 state election, at the age of 36, as a Country Party member. The seat was renamed Barambah in 1950. He spent his first eleven years as an opposition member, Labor having held power in Queensland since 1932.

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1950s
39
Member for Barambah, Queensland Legislative Assembly 1950–1987

Barambah, Queensland, Australia

Held the seat of Barambah — his Nanango seat renamed in 1950 — until 1987, giving him more than forty years in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, first as a Country Party and later as a National Party member.

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41
Married to Florence Isabel Gilmour 31 May 1952

Queensland, Australia
43
Death of father Carl George Bjelke-Petersen 1954

Queensland, Australiaaged 85
1960s
52
Minister for Works and Housing, Queensland from 1963

Queensland, Australia

Appointed minister for works and housing by Premier Frank Nicklin in 1963, a portfolio through which he approved construction of schools, police stations and public housing in government members' electorates. He also served at various times as acting minister for education, police, Aboriginal and Island Affairs, local government and conservation, and labour and industry, and served in cabinet without interruption until his retirement in 1987.

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57
Premier of Queensland from 8 August 1968 to 1 December 1987

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Sworn in as Premier of Queensland on 8 August 1968 after the death in office of Jack Pizzey, having threatened to withdraw the Country Party from the Coalition unless he became premier; he retained the police portfolio. He led his party to seven consecutive election victories and governed in coalition with the Liberal Party until 1983. Over his nineteen years as premier he tripled the number of Country/National voters and doubled the party's percentage vote. His first three victories were assisted by a rural malapportionment, nicknamed the "Bjelkemander", which he strengthened in 1972 by adding a fourth, remote electoral zone; on average it took about 7,000 votes to win a Country/National seat against about 12,000 for a Labor seat, allowing him to remain premier while frequently polling behind the other two major parties. Queensland had abolished its upper house in 1922, so legislation passed without negotiation with other parties. He is described as renowned for his political longevity and for the institutional corruption that pervaded his government.

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1970s
59
Death of mother Maren Poulsen 1970

Queensland, Australia
60
State of emergency, 1971 Springbok tour 14 July 1971

Queensland, Australia

On 14 July 1971 Bjelke-Petersen declared a month-long state of emergency covering the whole of Queensland ahead of the touring South African Springboks rugby union team's Brisbane match on 24 July, the date of two state by-elections. The proclamation gave the government almost unlimited power to quell what the government said was expected to be "a climax of violent demonstrations". Six hundred police were transported to Brisbane from elsewhere in the state, and 40 trade unions staged a 24-hour strike in protest. Police attacked a crowd of demonstrators outside the Springboks' Wickham Terrace motel with batons, boots and fists.

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1980s
72
Treasurer of Queensland from 19 August 1983 to 1 December 1987

Queensland, Australia

Held the Treasury portfolio alongside the premiership from 19 August 1983 until he left office on 1 December 1987.

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73
Title (KCMG) 23 June 1984

Created a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George on 23 June 1984 for "services to parliamentary democracy", becoming Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen. Prime Minister Bob Hawke discontinued Australian knighthoods in 1986, largely in response to this award.

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75
"Joh for Canberra" federal campaign from January 1987 to 3 June 1987

In January 1987 Bjelke-Petersen handed control of the state to Deputy Premier Bill Gunn and announced he would seek election to the House of Representatives, formally embarking on his "Joh for Canberra" push for the prime ministership. By early 1987 the campaign, with its promise of a 25 per cent flat tax, was attracting the support of 20 per cent of voters in opinion polls. Prime Minister Bob Hawke called a federal election on 27 May 1987 for 11 July, catching him unprepared: he had flown to the United States two days earlier and had not nominated for a federal seat. On 3 June he abandoned his ambitions to become prime minister and resumed his position in the Queensland government. He had pressured the federal Nationals to pull out of the Coalition, and Labor won a sweeping victory.

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76
Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption from 27 July 1987

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Following investigative reporting by Phil Dickie in The Courier-Mail and Chris Masters' Four Corners programme "The Moonlight State", broadcast 11 May 1987, Acting Premier Bill Gunn initiated a wide-ranging Commission of Inquiry into police corruption, despite opposition from Bjelke-Petersen, and selected former Federal Court judge Tony Fitzgerald as its head. Its terms were widened by late June to include "any other persons" with whom police might have been engaged in misconduct since 1977. Formal hearings began on 27 July 1987 and produced evidence implicating senior officers and Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, knighted in 1986 at Bjelke-Petersen's behest, who was ordered to stand down on 21 September 1987. In 1991 Bjelke-Petersen was tried for perjury over his evidence to the commission; the jury failed to reach a verdict and he was deemed too old to face a second trial.

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76
Retired (Retirement from politics) 1 December 1987

Queensland, Australia

Bjelke-Petersen retired from politics on 1 December 1987, ending nineteen years as premier and more than forty years in the Queensland Legislative Assembly. He had announced on 7 October 1987 that he would retire on 8 August 1988, the twentieth anniversary of his swearing-in, but was unable to recover from the damaging findings of the Fitzgerald Inquiry and initially resisted the party vote that replaced him as leader.

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2000s
94
Died 23 April 2005

Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia

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Undated
Buried

Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia

Buried at "Bethany", the family property at Kingaroy, Queensland. He had died at St Aubyn's Hospital, Kingaroy, on 23 April 2005, aged 94, and received a State Funeral in Kingaroy Town Hall at which Prime Minister John Howard and Queensland Premier Peter Beattie were speakers.

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