Joh Bjelke-Petersen: The 40-year-old virgin enters politics (part 1) - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Queensland's longest-serving premier is basically the bogeyman of Australian politics, a police-loving proto-Trump 'hillbilly dictator' the Sunshine State is still recovering from. 

This week we retrace Joh’s rise from fail son to peanut farmer, and finally to the highest office in Queensland.  

Plus... Joh marries a woman named Flo and then begins calling her ‘mum’ (not weird at all). 

Also, while you’re here, please do our listener survey.

Bjelke-Petersen, Joh. The Joh Tapes on Leadership. Interviews produced by Richard Lancaster and Barry Martin. Seven-part video oral-history collection. Accession 720849. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane. 

Bjelke-Petersen, Joh. Don’t You Worry about That! The Joh Bjelke-Petersen Memoirs. North Ryde, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1990. 

Queensland. Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct. Report of a Commission of Inquiry Pursuant to Orders in Council. Chaired by G. E. Fitzgerald. Brisbane: Queensland Government Printer, 1989.  

Megarrity, Lyndon. “The Lion and the Fox: Whitlam, Bjelke-Petersen and the Queensland Electorate, 1961–1975.” ANU Historical Journal II, no. 3 (2022): 23–52 

Robinson, Shirleene. “Homophobia as Party Politics: The Construction of the ‘Homosexual Deviant’ in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland.” Queensland Review 17, no. 1 (2010): 29–45 

Walter, James. “Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: ‘The Populist Autocrat.’” In The Premiers of Queensland, edited by Denis Murphy, Roger Joyce, Margaret Cribb, and Rae Wear, St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2003. 

Wear, Rae. “‘Never-Ending Story’: Public Accountability and Public Administration Reform in Queensland since 1989.” Queensland Review 18, no. 2 (2011): 175–89 

Wear, Rae. Johannes Bjelke-Petersen: The Lord’s Premier. St Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2002. 

Whitton, Evan. The Hillbilly Dictator: Australia’s Police State. Crows Nest, NSW: ABC Enterprises, 1989. 

Williams, Paul D. “Leaders and Political Culture: The Development of the Queensland Premiership, 1859–2009.” Queensland Review 16, no. 1 (2009): 15–34