Queensland’s ‘Bjelkemander’

Press, 19 August 1978, Page 17

Queensland’s ‘Bjelkemander’

Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen. By Hugh Lunn. University of Queensland Press. 280 pp. Index. $9.95. (Reviewed by Stuart McMillan) The- 'sense of outrage which many liberals feel about the activities of the Premier of Queensland tend to blind them to the astuteness of the man. Hugh Lunn’s book should do something to redress that view. The arrangement of the electorate boundaries which enables the National Party, as the Country party is called in Queensland, to stay in power election after election deserves a special place in the history of the colonies which pride themselves most on • their British inheritance. Hugh Lunn graces the whple procedure with the term Bjelkemander. Other special attitudes abound in Joh. Hugh Lunn describes the

Premier’s hard work as a contractor, his sense of adventure from flying, his keen business sense, and his unrelenting attention to his electorate. The book has obviously been written in some haste. Queensland politics are presented from the point of view of the political journalist which Hugh Lunn is. Mr Bjelke-Petersen, who does not like some of Lunn’s writing, refused to be involved in the book, but Lunn has done well to assemble as much material as he has. The book may be read for its colourfulness or for the entertaining story it tells about Queensland and its most famous politician. But the author has also provided some interesting links in the story of the downfall of the Whitlam Government and of the startling role played in Queensland by Allen Callaghan, who serves the Premier as Press Secretary.