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Let his own bury him

By Wayne Sanderson - posted Tuesday, 3 May 2005


The extent and true nature of opposition to a taxpayer funded state funeral for corrupt former Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen will never be known because it is a story the local media refused to tell.

ABC Local Radio and The Courier-Mail, the only realistic outlets for such a debate, denied freedom of speech and refused to allow public discussion of the issue.

The Courier-Mail received three submissions for its opinion page in 2004 (that I am aware of) and refused to publish all of them. One was by police whistleblower, Nigel Powell, the second by then Greens Senate candidate Drew Hutton, and the other came from me.

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Each of us had standing on the issue having been there and witnessed Joh's reign, and each was referred to an editorial the paper ran on July 9 last year as reason for our submissions not being published. (Powell’s article was subsequently published by On Line Opinion on August 8 last year.)

Among other statements that ought offend anyone who cares about journalism, free speech, and “the indispensable opposition” in an open society, that editorial said: “As premier of Queensland for 19 years, Sir Joh's entitlement to a state funeral, when the time comes, should not be questioned.” (Emphasis added.)

And certainly would not be questioned while the paper had anything to do with it, but more on that offensive twaddle in a moment. Hutton and Powell then approached ABC Local Radio, only to be told, in part, that “an editorial decision has been taken not to discuss this issue”.

It would be interesting to hear a justification for that outrage against the ABC’s charter and reason for being.

But of course, the sufficiently provocative can always get a run from lazy hacks. And so it is that unsuccessful second-hand book shop owner and self-proclaimed "West End ratbag", Brian Laver, became the voice of opposition to a state funeral with crazy talk of picketing it.

Having helped create this media straw man, and given him a good run on its own pages let it be said, The Courier-Mail then tears him down, observing, without irony, “The attention Mr Laver's antics have received since the death of Sir Joh … demonstrate how media outlets can let their guard down and be used by a sole voice with a placard or a small ‘rent a crowd’.” You don’t say.

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Of course to add severe injury to the insult of only covering Laver’s antics, the Courier and the ABC have in the process discredited the reasoned and reasonable case to be made against a state funeral because Laver has come to represent it.

Meanwhile literally hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders who opposed Joh when he rode rough shod over the state oppose a state funeral for him, or would if they were given a chance to hear the arguments against it, don’t you worry about that.

They deserve to hear those arguments, and to be given the chance to consider them. They are more compelling than anything heard so far in favour of granting one, and there are many articulate writers, journalists, musicians, academics, workers and plain old common-as-muck folk who can and would love to have talked Premier Peter Beattie out of honouring the old “hillbilly dictator” with a state funeral at public expense.

But since I’ve got the only soap-box currently on offer, you will just have to make do with my attempt.

In the editorial referred to earlier, the Courier said the old rogue should be buried with all the pomp and circumstance the state can muster because “such a funeral recognises the importance of the office he held”.

In other words each and every Premier, no matter what ignominy they heap upon the office, gets buried with a bang? Nonsense!

Let's apply that argument to Keith Wright, convicted child sex offender, who was the alternative Premier in 1983, and might have been elected to the office, but for the grace of God and the gerrymander.

Ah, so suddenly there are limits to the “because you held the office” argument you get a state funeral. Glad we got that sorted. No state funeral for those who disgrace the office, you say.

I rest my case. In all likelihood Bjelke-Petersen would have been in jail (a cell beside Wright's?) if National Party true-believer Luke Shaw hadn’t perverted the course of justice first by not declaring his political allegiance before being sworn to the jury ,and then by obstinately obstructing its deliberations, in Joh's perjury trial.

How much abusing of the office do you want to hear? For starters the old crook not once had to face an honest election in his state career, and refused any attempt to get rid of the rigged boundaries, even when the push came from his then Liberal mates.

He messed with the judiciary, made the state a cronies paradise to be hived off at mates rates, persecuted opponents (remember John Sinclair?), hand-picked that other crook Terry Lewis as Police Commissioner, vetoed any accountability or a Parliamentary committee system, he blocked proper investigations into allegations of police brutality, so say nothing of the lives, marriages, careers destroyed by his bastardry.

And that is only the half of it and not even the worst of it. Democracy is a precious and fragile thing, something built up and defended over thousands of years by blood, sacrifice and toil (ANZAC Day, lest we forget). It is a social contract, an instinct that guides the conduct of citizens in a civil society.

Bjelke-Petersen was thoroughly and unfailingly anti-democratic, an autocrat whose words and actions undermined our democratic institutions, instinct and heritage. He is not worthy of our collective, institutional respect.

By all means let his family mourn and remember him well. As a society there are dangers in misplaced, self-indulgent sentimentality. Once again, Queensland is being seduced into thinking maybe he wasn’t really so bad after all. No he wasn’t. He was worse.

And while the wrecking ball is out, let’s swing it at this jerry-built house of empty rhetoric: “He got things done for Queensland.” Bjelke-Petersen did nothing more than premiers are elected to do.

Is anyone seriously suggesting that dams and roads weren’t built in other states? That tourist resorts and coal mines weren’t opened up?

Oh, and if any of the lazy scribblers who have been warbling on about his economic achievements actually care to check the record, they will find that Queensland had the highest or second-highest (after Tasmania) level of unemployment for most of the time he was in office.

But it is not the hacks who are the main villains in this instance, rather those above them in the editorial food-chain. Whoever penned the Courier’s shameful editorial should never be allowed near another one, and whoever was responsible for banning dissenting voices from its opinion pages has no place in a news room, especially not in a one-newspaper town.

The Courier-Mail should also explain its actions, apologise and ensure readers that it repudiates entirely the suggestion that decisions of elected leaders “should not be questioned”. Unless and until it does, readers are entitled to judge the paper accordingly.

No ABC manager should ever refuse to allow dissident voices to be heard on matters of public interest and whoever made that decision is not fit to hold an editorial position. The corporation should take steps to make sure it never happens again.

But let’s end on a positive and happy note. There was a time in the recent past when if the mainstream media didn't report it, it didn't happen. Now, thankfully, there is the internet and independent outlets like On Line Opinion, which become more popular as the audience for traditional outlets falls (a phenomenon even Rupert Murdoch has recently acknowledged).
 
One of the reasons given for the turnaround is that news and opinion consumers resent having their information diet chosen for them by arrogant and out of touch organisations that do not represent them, nor the views they hold.
 
There is something in that for everyone involved in this sad, and all too familiar, Queensland media saga.

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About the Author

Wayne Sanderson publishes and edits The Daily Briefing and is a Brisbane-based journalist and writer.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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