# Johannes Bjelke-Petersen Johannes Bjelke-Petersen (13 JAN 1911 – 23 APR 2005); child of Carl George Bjelke-Petersen and Maren Poulsen; born in Dannevirke, New Zealand; married Florence Isabel Gilmour; died in Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia. **Lifespan:** 13 JAN 1911 – 23 APR 2005 ## Parents - [Carl George Bjelke-Petersen](/p/carl-george-bjelke-petersen-50585.md) (father) - [Maren Poulsen](/p/maren-poulsen-50584.md) (mother) ## Spouses - [Florence Isabel Gilmour](/p/florence-isabel-gilmour-50577.md) — m. 31 MAY 1952 ## Timeline - 13 JAN 1911 — **Born** at Dannevirke, New Zealand - FROM 1933 — **Occupation (Peanut farmer and land-clearing contractor)** at 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. - 1946 — **Councillor, Kingaroy Shire Council** at Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia — Elected to the Kingaroy Shire Council in 1946, his first elected office, a year before entering the Queensland Legislative Assembly. - FROM 1947 TO 1950 — **Member for Nanango, Queensland Legislative Assembly** at 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. - FROM 1950 TO 1987 — **Member for Barambah, Queensland Legislative Assembly** at 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. - FROM 1963 — **Minister for Works and Housing, Queensland** at 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. - FROM 8 AUG 1968 TO 1 DEC 1987 — **Premier of Queensland** at 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. - 14 JUL 1971 — **State of emergency, 1971 Springbok tour** at 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. - FROM 19 AUG 1983 TO 1 DEC 1987 — **Treasurer of Queensland** at Queensland, Australia — Held the Treasury portfolio alongside the premiership from 19 August 1983 until he left office on 1 December 1987. - 23 JUN 1984 — **Title (KCMG)** — 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. - FROM JAN 1987 TO 3 JUN 1987 — **"Joh for Canberra" federal campaign** — 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. - FROM 27 JUL 1987 — **Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption** at 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. - 1 DEC 1987 — **Retired (Retirement from politics)** at 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. - 23 APR 2005 — **Died** at Kingaroy, Queensland, Australia - **Buried** at 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. --- Canonical HTML: https://smallworld.stallman.net.au/p/johannes-bjelke-petersen-50578