approached Joh’s former colleagues and, although sometimes prickly at first, most agreed to talk. In the main they were positive and defensive – history had been unfair to their leader. But the passage of time also produced the odd flush of candour. Their account took me behind the bumblebee persona to a clever political operator who in twenty years doubled the party’s vote. A notorious gerrymander had helped, but did not account for this extraordinary political achievement. Joh’s political guile had given him hero status within the conservative right, and grudging respect among Labor opponents, state and federal. In his early period in particular, Joh presided over strong economic growth, which transformed Queensland from its Cinderella status. He had relied on clever advice from the likes of Treasury boss Sir Leo Hielscher, but had made an undeniable contribution. As Hielscher put it: ‘He was outstanding in his appreciation of what the objective was [but] he didn’t know very much about how to get there.’ Bjelke‐Petersen was ahead of his time in image management, appearing at least to be engaged with his public, particularly those outside Queensland’s populous south‐ east corner. He was one of the first to employ advisers, such as ABC reporter Allen Callaghan, who knew how to set the media agenda. ‘Feeding the chooks’, as Joh described it, became a routine and enduring practice. And Joh played his own part well. As Callaghan told me, all that mangling of the dictionary did not make him a bad communicator. Up close, people – even enemies – had their animosity blunted by disarming charm. Joh would remember your name and, as old mate Bill Roberts recalled, would ‘take the teapot around’. There were weaknesses. The other side of the legendary bush battler upbringing – sweating from dusk to dawn; bunking down for fifteen years in a cow bail – meant he not just eschewed the scholarly, but allowed himself an anti‐intellectual vanity. Joh was not one for reading. He would champion ‘commonsense’ ideas that were anything but. Milan Brych, who promised a cure for cancer, was one of a band of conmen and heartbreakers to get through Joh’s door. As he became more successful, it became that much more difficult to tell him he was wrong. A key adviser, Ken Crooke, explained that Joh did not want naysayers around him. He preferred positive people who could find a way to get things done. It may have been his embedded Christian convictions that generated a moral certainty which at times proved delusional. Joh’s colleagues saw him as a stickler for propriety. The premier would insist on travel being strictly for government business. But he loved flying so much that he didn’t seem to be able to help himself. Joh would wangle a place on the government aircraft to head off to negotiate a coal contract when all around him knew there was no need for him to be there. Up the front with his pilot, Beryl Young, there was peace and calm – perhaps at times disturbed by the anguished muttering of ministers and public servants down the back.
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 21: Hidden Queensland © Copyright 2008 Griffith University & the author.