by John Howard
By 1987 he had been Premier of Queensland for 19 years. Australia had a federal Labor Government, and Labor was in power in all other states except Tasmania. Joh was a hero to people on the right and centre-right of politics, not only in his own state but elsewhere. He spoke with the authority of being in government. I spoke with the limitations of being an Opposition leader, and one who was under pressure within his own party.
Bjelke-Petersen had beaten Labor on numerous occasions. He had demoralised the Liberals in Queensland with his remarkable win in November 1986. Although some former National Party insiders say that Joh had resolved to tilt for Canberra before the 1986 election, his amazing victory removed serious doubts in his mind. Until then the possibility of the ‘Joh for PM’ campaign gathering traction was remote.
To win 49 out of the 89 seats in the Queensland parliament was a huge accomplishment for the National Party. A week out from that election a deadlocked parliament looked likely. The all-out National Party assault during the final week shifted many people who traditionally might have voted Liberal towards Bjelke-Petersen, in the name of having a stable, conservative government in Queensland. This victory persuaded him, and many around him, that he had broad vote-winning appeal, including amongst blue-collar Labor voters.
There was another simple reason why he turned his gaze to Canberra. 1986, despite the triumph it was, was his last state election. It became, therefore, a question of why not have a go for Canberra. In the atmosphere of Queensland politics after the election, such issues as the unlikelihood of his state popularity translating fully into the federal arena never occurred to his spruikers. There have been very few successful translations of successful state political figures into positions of equal power and prominence federally. Behaviour deemed popular, even loveable, at a state level becomes quirky and even embarrassing at a national level.
There was also the reality that many Liberals who happily declared their regard and support for Bjelke-Petersen whilst he was Queensland Premier had a completely different attitude towards the prospect that he might be the alternative to Bob Hawke as prime minister. As Christmas 1986 drew near, none of this seemed to matter. The victory in November had converted a fanciful dream into a tantalising possibility.
Until Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland election victory, I did not judge that the ‘Joh for PM’ campaign, although distracting, would become a reality. Watching Joh’s victory speech that night in November 1986, my concern deepened. I said to Janette, who had watched it with me, ‘This is going to create terrible trouble for us.’
My concerns were realised almost immediately. In a post-election interview with the Australian on 3 November he said, ‘This time I won’t be working through them. They’ll work with the policies I set or I will work against them, and I’ve told them that.’1 Hinze had been even more direct: ‘We need a type of leader like Sir Joh in the nation,’ he said. ‘Howard tried to help Knox [the Queensland Liberal leader] and was not accepted. It’s a problem for the conservative parties in Australia, we have to find a new leader,’ he continued.2 When pressed, he said that Andrew Peacock was one of the politicians capable of saving Australia.
Bjelke-Petersen was unresponsive to any personal overtures. I rang him on Christmas Eve 1986. He was polite in response but decidedly distant. It was plain that he had no intention of sitting down with me to plan a joint strategy to defeat Hawke.
The Bjelke-Petersen push had precious little to do with philosophy. It was driven by the desire to achieve and wield power. The Queensland Premier and I were close on some issues. We were both socially conservative and shared similar views on industrial relations, although we differed on other economic policies. He frequently railed against ‘trendies’ in the Liberal Party — hardly applicable to me. But our similarities meant nothing.
Although, as fellow premiers, Sir Charles Court, of Western Australia, and Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen often made common cause against Canberra, Court was dismayed by the Joh for PM campaign. He thought it ill-advised, doomed to fail and damaging to the Liberal cause. He tried in various ways to persuade his former premier-in-arms against it, and expressed concern to me about some of the people around Bjelke-Petersen.
Joh used the Christmas/New Year period to keep the speculation going. He held a major rally in Wagga Wagga on 31 January and announced his strong support for a 25 per cent flat tax policy. He spoke of ‘starting a bushfire that will spread across Australia’.3 That meeting was addressed by Des Keegan of the Australian and the activist leader of Australia’s surgeons, Bruce Shepherd. He personified the type of person who caused me difficulties with Joh. A very conservative man, he professed support for me and had actually told me in advance what he proposed saying at the Wagga Wagga rally, but also told me what a great man Joh was. Shepherd railed against the so-called trendies in my party such as Ian Macphee and Peter Baume. I told him that the Liberal Party was a broad church and that it was the final policies which emerged that really mattered.
In January 1987 I went to Perth for some America’s Cup activities and had breakfast with Ian McLachlan, still president of the National Farmers Federation (NFF) but there for a meeting of the Elders board. He was an impressive figure who I liked and really wanted as a Liberal candidate at the next election. Then one of Australia’s largest woolgrowers, his leadership of the NFF had made him a real poster boy for industrial relations reform on issues such as the Mudginberri abattoir. Whilst being friendly, he was unwilling to commit. Shortly afterwards, John Carrick, who had been a NSW senator since 1971, told me that he would resign his Senate seat in favour of Ian McLachlan, if that would help. I rang and told McLachlan of this. He was non-committal. Carrick had made a huge gesture, but I don’t think that Ian was fully seized by this. A few weeks later I called to see McLachlan when in Adelaide. We had a long and friendly talk, but it was of little avail. He said that he did not wish to commit specifically to either the Liberal Party or the Nationals. He kept referring to the right-hand side of politics. McLachlan said that he had been in touch with Bjelke-Petersen. He said, ‘You know, he really thinks he can do it. I am going to take a detailed look at his proposals.’ He also said that the NFF was resolutely opposed to a consumption tax and would campaign hard against it if it became Liberal policy. The farmers wanted fuel excise abolished. I left that meeting feeling dispirited.
A huge complication throughout was the poor relations between Bjelke-Petersen and the Nationals’ federal leader, Ian Sinclair. The Queensland Premier had no interest in getting closer to his federal colleague, and Ian Sinclair struggled to find the right modus operandi for handling Joh. Relations between Joh and the federal Nationals had always been problematic. In the Fraser Government days, Peter Nixon had been the man to deal with Joh. Nixon was neither in awe of Joh nor insensitive to his raw populism. He was a straight shooter, and on many occasions both Malcolm Fraser and Doug Anthony would ask Peter Nixon to ‘deal with Joh’.
Tension built as parliament prepared to resume in February 1987. Tactically, Bjelke-Petersen’s first objective was to break the federal coalition. My aim was to preserve it. I knew that if the federal coalition held, there was no real prospect of a ‘Joh for PM’ campaign getting off the ground. Crucial to maintaining the federal coalition was the determination and leadership authority of Ian Sinclair.
We held a joint party meeting on 2 February, after which I called on Bjelke-Petersen to be either supportive or to keep out of the federal scene. On the same day, at a news conference, Ian Sinclair reiterated his commitment to the Coalition and said that no individual premier or leader of any state parliamentary party ‘will have a direct role in determining any other course’. That was the right attitude.
The agitation from the Queenslanders continued, and attention shifted to a separate meeting of the federal parliamentary National Party, set for 16 February. This shaped as a test of Ian Sinclair’s authority to hold the federal Nationals in the Coalition. Before the meeting, I spoke to him about the need to reaffir
m the commitment of the Nationals to the Coalition.
The outcome of that National Party meeting could not have been worse. Instead of a clear statement of support for the Coalition, what was described to me by Peter McGauran, a National MP, as ‘an olive branch to Bjelke-Petersen’ emanated. It said nothing about the Coalition. Rather, it welcomed the thrust of what the Premier of Queensland had been seeking to achieve and expressed support for his general philosophy. This outcome told me that, when push came to shove, Bjelke-Petersen had enough influence to break the federal coalition. The Queenslanders were in mortal fear of their party endorsements. Not only could Bjelke-Petersen corral them but also at least two from other states.
This was anything but an endorsement of the federal coalition. The following day, I told Ian Sinclair that I would not preside at a joint party meeting, scheduled for later that day, unless he was willing to have his National Party colleagues join in an affirmation of the Coalition, to be publicly made after the meeting of the two parties. After consulting his colleagues, Ian said he would do as I wished. The joint party meeting was held, and the statement I wanted was issued.
The statement said that Ian Sinclair had informed the joint party meeting of the desire of the National Party to continue in coalition with the Liberals. It also reaffirmed that the maintenance of the Coalition was the most effective instrument to defeat the Hawke Government. Cracks were being papered over.
The shove came from the central council of the Queensland National Party meeting at Hervey Bay on 27 February. Effectively, that meeting called on the parliamentary members of the federal National Party to withdraw from the Coalition. The ‘Joh for PM’ campaign came out of the closet at that meeting. ‘Joh for PM’ T-shirts were distributed and ostentatiously donned by people such as the Deputy Premier of Queensland, Bill Gunn. I attached significance to him as my colleague Wal Fife, who had been a fellow Education Minister with Gunn some years earlier, had conveyed to me assurances from Gunn: ‘Don’t worry, Wal. It won’t happen.’ The bandwagon was well and truly gathering pace. Ian Sinclair had attended the meeting and rang me afterwards sounding deeply depressed about the outcome, but assured me he would continue to resist any breaking of the federal coalition.
Sinclair publicly ignored the Hervey Bay resolution. The Queensland members of the National Party decided to wait until a meeting of the federal council of the National Party, due at the end of March, before deciding whether or not to bail out. Meanwhile, the central executive of the NSW party reaffirmed its strong support for Ian Sinclair as leader, and the maintenance of the federal coalition.
Separately, the federal member for Groom in Queensland, Tom McVeigh, withdrew from the federal parliamentary National Party. There were rumours at the time that McVeigh had been offered a job by Bjelke-Petersen in return for vacating his very safe Darling Downs electorate in favour of the Premier.
In directing the parliamentary Nationals to leave the Coalition, and threatening their endorsements if they did not do so, the Queensland Nationals were doing something which for decades both the Liberal and National parties had publicly held against the Labor Party. Dictation from unelected party bosses had been a characteristic of the Australian Labor Party in the 1950s and ’60s.
To people such as Doug Anthony, this thuggish behaviour by the unelected central council of the Queensland National Party was contrary to fundamental beliefs of the two coalition parties.
Speaking at the Sydney Rotary Club on 2 March, Doug Anthony said, ‘I cannot stomach the intimidatory (sic) action against sitting members of parliament. Threatening them with their preselection if they don’t obey the organisation is political blackmail … For 60 years, the party was proud of its parliamentary freedom and goodwill. For the Queensland organisation to direct and threaten elected members of parliament smacks of those features of the Labor Party we have always deplored.’ He went on to say that if the federal coalition were broken, ‘the mantle of blame would fall fairly and squarely on the Queensland National Party’.4 He said it was absurd of the Queensland National Party to imagine it could ever win seats in metropolitan Sydney or Melbourne and that all that would occur would be the re-election of the Hawke Government. Doug Anthony understood precisely what was at stake.
The federal council met in Canberra on 27 March 1987. It resolved that it be left to the parliamentary Nationals to determine when they would withdraw from the Coalition. Many, me included, saw this as a real breakthrough, and perceived that the Queenslanders had backed off. We were wrong. All they had done was to embrace a tactical retreat. Time had been bought, so it was later claimed by Sparkes, the Queensland Nationals president, and others, to deny Hawke the option of an early election. If that was the reason then clearly it did not work.
The Queenslanders did not waste much time. The State Management Committee of the Queensland National Party met on 10 April and ordered its remaining 11 federal parliamentarians to leave the Coalition. This, of course, ignored the decision of the federal council to leave the timing of Coalition withdrawal to the parliamentary party. It was yet another illustration of how the Queenslanders held the National Party in the rest of the country in contempt. It was poetic justice that, in the end, this contemptuous indifference was the undoing of the whole Queensland enterprise.
I sensed that it would probably be short-lived, but I tried the tactic of holding together a remnant coalition. This was to consist of Nationals who remained committed to the Coalition, namely non-Queenslanders and Liberals. I announced a reshuffled shadow ministry with fewer National Party representatives.
Meeting on 28 April, the full parliamentary National Party rejected two of the stipulations I had made relating to meetings of the parliamentary Nationals as part of the deal I had concluded with Sinclair to keep a remnant coalition going. They regarded them as inconsistent with the continuation of their party as a separate parliamentary entity. Their reaction was understandable, but so had been mine: to do all in my power to preserve as much unity as possible between the two parties.
It was the Nationals who had broken the coalition. It had been the unwillingness of the parliamentary collective of National Party members in Canberra to defy the Queensland organisation which had brought about the crisis. If the Queenslanders in the federal parliamentary National Party had stood together and defied their party organisation and stayed in the coalition, there is no way that all of them would have lost their endorsements. If they had all displayed the fortitude of Stan Collard, who defended the right of the parliamentary members to decide these things, history would have been different. Instead they let him be picked off, and he alone lost his preselection.
At 8.30 pm on 28 April 1987, in Canberra, feeling very sad about it, I announced the end of the federal coalition. I said:
Mr Sinclair and I reached an agreement which was an honourable agreement. But because a few Queensland National Party members did not have the guts to stand up to the maverick Premier of Queensland, the National Party has broken that agreement and thus the National Party has brought an end to the Coalition. Therefore, the Liberal Party will now go all out to win government in its own right. If we fall short by a few seats of achieving that goal at the next election I will negotiate a new coalition agreement with the National Party so that we can get rid of the Hawke Government, form a new Coalition Government, and implement policies which will benefit all Australians.5
They were brave words, uttered with much passion, but I knew in my heart just how difficult our predicament had become.
We were a spectacle of disunity and weakness. Labor could not have believed its extraordinary good fortune. The ‘Joh for PM’ push had sucked all the oxygen out of the air for me, my party and those parliamentary National Party members who were genuinely trying to concentrate on our main job, and that was to oppose and hopefully defeat the Hawke Government. Ian Sinclair had done his level best to save the Coalition.
It was an immensely dispiriting time for our supporters throughout the country. Co
nstant preoccupation with the threat to the Coalition posed by the Queensland Nationals had rendered serious policy work virtually impossible. Not only was an enormous amount of my time, and that of other senior colleagues, focused on the Bjelke-Petersen issue, but the totally compromised independence of the parliamentary Nationals meant that they were in no mood to focus on, let alone commit to, particular policies.
The Queensland Nationals had achieved their negative objectives. They had wrecked the federal coalition and completely undermined Ian Sinclair’s leadership. They had gravely weakened my own position as alternative Prime Minister. Yet, with the exception of John Stone, the former Treasury secretary, they had not recruited any star or high-profile candidates willing to run under the Joh banner. None of the other prominent potential recruits mentioned from time to time materialised. Some made it plain they would not sign up with Bjelke-Petersen. One was Greg Chappell, the cricket great, who in a telephone conversation with me firmly ruled out any possibility of becoming a candidate for the Queensland Premier. The negative part had been accomplished fairly easily. The more difficult part of presenting as a credible alternative conservative force had not been achieved.
By contrast, Hawke continued to govern decisively. On 13 May the Treasurer delivered a major economic statement outlining a reduction of $4 billion in the prospective budget deficit. It gave the appearance of a government dealing directly with the economic challenges then facing Australia.
Hawke had been presented with the irresistible temptation to call an early election. He readily succumbed, and announced it at 5 pm on 27 May. It was a double dissolution, obtained on the strength of Senate rejection of the Australia Card legislation.