The Bjelke-Petersen government usually had a comfortable
relationship with the mining industry.
 |
| Standoff . . . Foes face off at
Mt Isa when a police squad of 40, including 20 men
flown from Brisbane, keep 200 pickets and their
supporters off the roadway near the mine entrance as
employees enter the gates on March 15, 1965. |
|
In 1969, for example, when the state was gripped by drought
and its bush supporters were hurting, the old Country Party
was nearly broke. In stepped Mt Isa Mines with an offer to
underwrite the election campaign. In return, Queensland
taxpayers were deprived of $4 million in stamp duties when Mt
Isa Mines became MIM Holdings Ltd.
It was not the last time Queenslanders would lose stamp
duties because of a deal done by Bjelke-Petersen; the same
thing happened when the premier exempted Alan Bond from stamp
duty when he disposed of hotels owned by Castlemaine Perkins
after Bond (later jailed for a billion-dollar fraud) bought
the brewery.
Utah, the giant American company which developed the
minefields of the Bowen Basin, was another company in which
Queensland politicians owned shares.
Liberal state treasurer Gordon Chalk had signed an
agreement in 1968, much to the annoyance of Country Party
premier Jack Pizzey, which gave Utah very favourable royalty
terms.
Later it was revealed that Chalk's wife held shares in
Utah, yet this hardly rated a concern in Queensland at the
time. It was different then.
 |
Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen
holds court in his Parliament House bedroom for
students from Kingaroy State High School, in the heart
of his electorate, on a 1969 tour of the building.
Picture: Graham Hutton |
|
How different would Queensland have been if Jack Pizzey,
who had a university degree and the experience of life gained
by serving as a World War II artillery officer, had not died
in August 1968? For with his death, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen
became premier.
Bjelke-Petersen seemed an unlikely choice. He was not a
good public speaker and, even as a youngish backbencher, he
was a problem for the party whips.
His first cabinet portfolio was Works. It was ideal,
because bridges, roads, schools, police stations — all the
great items of state government spending — could be dispensed
to electorates. And Bjelke-Petersen never forgot the
backbenchers concerned owed him a favour. In 1968, those
favours were called in.
In 1969, Queenslanders had not warmed to Bjelke-Petersen,
a curious man with a convoluted speaking style, a difficult
name and the reputation of being a wowser.
Bjelke-Petersen's premiership was nearly very short. The
coalition was re-elected in 1969 only because voters did not
want a dull and limited Labor Party led by a dull and limited
Jack Houston, about whom the most exciting thing to be said
was that he judged dog shows.
Queenslanders had not warmed, either, to Bjelke-Petersen, a
curious man with a convoluted speaking style, a difficult name
and the reputation of being — not to put too fine a point on
it — a wowser and a Bible basher.
Continued >>
