Far-right Premier likely to keep power

Press, 12 November 1977, Page 9

Far-right Premier likely to keep power

NZPA Sydney If Australia has one state among the six which enjoys an identity markedly different from the others, it is Queensland. For more than nine years, the New Zealand born Premier, Mr Joh Bjelke-Peter-sen, has guided the political destiny of the sunshine state.

Today Queenslanders go to the polls — and the likely outcome of the state election is the return of a National-Liberal Party coalition Government with Mr Bjelke-Petersen again at its head.

Yet Mr Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party will probably poll less than 30 per cent of the vote — possibly less than either of the other two major political groups, the Liberal Party and the Labour Party. In 1974, he retained power, with 27.9 per cent of the vote, which was sufficient to capture 39 of the 80 seats in the state Parliament.

The Liberals, with 31.1 per cent of the vote, took 30 seats, and the Labour Party polled 36 per cent, yet won only 11 seats.

Since then, an electoral boundary redistribution has taken place, and the gerrymandering which is seen as part and parcel of the Queensland political scene will ensure that the National Party’s position has if anything been strengthened.

Labour is expected to increase its share of the poll, but on its own estimates, the party needs to attract 62 per cent of the vote to win power. The Liberals are suffering from a certain degree of internal dissension, and opinion polls suggest they could drop their share of the vote.

Part of the reason for the seemingly inequitous distribution of voting at past elections is because of the selective way in which the

National and Liberal Parties have contested seats. There was a gentleman’s agreement that partners in the coalition parties would not contest against each other in many seats. This time, that policy has been dropped by the National Party, which is opposing sitting Liberal candidates in many electorates. Traditionally, the National Party (formerly the Country Party) gets its supports from Queensland’s vast rural regions. In 1974, the Labour Party lost much of its urban support, and it is in Brisbane and the more sensely populated coastal area where the expected swing to Labour will show up. Mr Bjelke-Petersen is I never far removed from controversy, but he seems to thrive ’on it. The issues which appear to be his weaknesses, somehow become his strengths. He is a hard-line conservative and a rabid anti-communist. He takes every opportunity to attack “the trendies and Lefties,'-’

He believed two field workers for a trachoma programme among aboriginals were encouraging the natives to not only vote, but to vote Labour. At his insistence, the Federallysponsored programme was suspended. He has banned Brisbane street marches — and reportedly calmed protest among the clergy by distributing police photographs pinpointing the same “stirrers” in the front line at various demonstrations on differing issues. He appears to have again weathered attacks against his personal share-holdings in mining and exploration ventures.

He has gone into Labour! electorates and told voters that the return of a Labour candidate will lead to cuts in Government spending in that area when he returns to

power. Mr Bjelke-Petersen is the most dictatorial of the Australian Premiers. But it is an image that a great many Queenslanders are prepared to put up with. They applaud the independent stance which he has pursued in his dealings with the Federal Government in Canberra — a stance which has enhanced the sense of statehood. The coalition has gon< through some rough times lately, but there are nc serious suggestions that it will collapse. On past per formances, the prospect of < Labour success is remote and if there is a change i would be more realistic tr predict that the Liberal could become the senior coa lition partner, which wouk give their leader, Mr Bil' Knox, the Premiership, an< reduce Mr Bjelke-Petersen tc Deputy Premier. The extent of the swing tf Labour will be significant a: a guideline to the Federa election on December 10. Main issues in the campaign have been unemployment, law and order, and uranium mining.