Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen

Who was Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen?

Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, during which time the state enjoyed considerable economic development. His uncompromising conservatism, his political longevity, and his leadership of a government that, in its later years, was revealed to be institutionally corrupt, made him one of the best-known and most controversial political figures of 20th century Australia.

Bjelke-Petersen's Country Party controlled Queensland despite consistently receiving the smallest number of votes out of the state's leading three parties, achieving the result through a notorious system of electoral malapportionment that resulted in rural votes having a greater value than those cast in city electorates. The effect earned Bjelke-Petersen the nickname of "the Hillbilly Dictator". Yet he was a highly popular figure among conservative voters and over the course of his 19 years as premier he trebled the number of people who voted for his party and doubled the party's percentage vote, reducing his Liberal coalition partners to a mere six seats in the 1983 election.