Showdown for Sir Joh tomorrow

Press, 1 December 1987, Page 10

Showdown for Sir Joh tomorrow

NZPA Sydney The showdown between the Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and the man who replaced him as National Party leader, Mr Mike Ahern, is set to take place on the floor of Parliament tomorrow. Mr Ahem said yesterday that Parliament would be reconvened at 1 p.ni.. (New Zealand time) to resolve the week-long confusion over who is running the state. Sir Joh last week called for a special Parliamentary session this Thursday for the same purpose. Mr Ahem said the date had been brought forward “to satisfy an early resolution of the issues”. "At this stage, there is no resignation (from Sir Joh) in place, but there are still some options available to achieve a resignation before that time,” he said. “But obviously time is running out.” Mr Ahem became party leader after a ballot last Thursday in which he reportedly gained 30 votes among the 48 Members of Parliament present — Sir Joh was the sole absentee. However, although all 48 Members of Parliament later signed a declaration of support for Mr Ahern; the Governor, <Sir Walter Campbell, declined to withdraw Sir Job’s commission without a resignation. Mr Ahern said that if Sir Joh lost a confidence motion then by convention his commission would be withdrawn.

With the Nationals having a majority of only nine in the 89-seat chamber, a confidence vote could be a close run thing. The Liberal leader, Sir William Knox, said his party might support Sir Joh, making Labour’s role a possibly decisive one. The Labour leader, Mr Nev Warburton, declined to say how his party would vote. “That hasn’t been determined and it’s quite improper for me to make a comment on what might happen,” he said. Observers said Labour was in *a quandary because it would want to vote against Mr Ahern to embarrass the Government and to try to force an election, but to support Sir Joh would seem too bizarre a proposition to consider. However, if, the Labour and Liberal Members of Parliament did vote as a block, Sir Joh would need to persuade only four of his colleagues to support him to humiliate Mr Ahern. Sir William said he believed Sir Joh had been doing a count of National Members of Parliament to gauge the strength of loyalty to him. “I expect there has been a lot of discussions of that sort in the last few days and there seems to be some evidence that the Premier’s been successful,” he said. “There must be a substantial number (of loyal National members of Parliament) for him to go the way he is planning to go.”