Now is the time for everyone in much of Brisbane to bury old enmities & give thanks to old Joh. Much of Brisbane is only above water due to his foresight, & determination, in pushing Wivenhoe through.

It has now saved Brisbane from dying of thirst, & made this flood much less severe than it would have been.

Having been through a flood myself, many years ago, I have great sympathy for all those going through it now, in so much of Qld.

However isn't it great that so many are now being spared the heartbreak now, due to the old bu##ers legacy.

I have to endoese that, hasbeen, as well as the efforts of Brisbane City Councils and State Governments since, which have together worked at flood mitigation works all over the city.

My premises went under to about 1.5m in 1974 to the best of my ability to research. The projection is that the flood will atop about a metre below my place, but I've been lifting everything up anyway. when you have all your assets in timber, floods and fire are big problems.

Good luck to everyone in Brisbane and Ipswich, and of course to all the rest of the people afflicted by this flood and the ones that are yet to come in this extraordinary year.

How soon we forget the LNP's mean point scoring politics in scuttling the Traverston Dam on the Mary River. They did the heavy sledging and the Greens claimed the credit. Nimby anti-dam politics has been kind to the LNP and the Greens, delivering that odd few votes to win seats.

Damn (dam) politics,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/11/2739813.htm

Cornflower,
If I recall correctly the coalition wasn't against a dam, it was against a dam in that particular location. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they argue to have dams further upstream to keep all the good farming land ?

individual,"..the coalition wasn't against a dam, it was against a dam in that particular location.."

Anywhere but where it was proposed - the usual games that politicians play.

What I am trying to say is how about shelving the politics for a while to arrive at solutions that deliver the most community benefit? After all, the dam was eventually shelved by Labor (Peter Garrett) and on political not practical grounds - nor environmental grounds when one considers the alternatives forced into play and the present devastation from floods.

We need a statesman like Clem Jones who among other accomplishments sewered Brisbane, a magnificent feat and against the will of entrenched interests.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clem_Jones

It amazes me that you could commend the most corrupt State Govt in Australia's history just because of global warming weather events.

Joh himself would have been the countries leading climate change sceptic, and there is no doubt that the dam of which you would have been most likely the product a corrupt tendering process or even worse a monumental job for the boys.

You must be kidding. The environmental devastation up and down the Qld coast is testament to the Bjelke Petersen. Floods can be recovered from, corrupt govt's do clearly irreversible damage, and this Gov't was Australia greatest example of regressive, oppressive, short sighted stupidity, maintained by the rigging of the political process.

Sorry Hasbeen but I am truly appalled. The excess powers given to Qld police remained seared in my personal memories. And Qld's reputation as a hillbilly outpost has taken a long time to dissipate in this country. I don't think there is any need to remind us, "that those weren't the days" .

Wivenhoe won't stop

The flood, but we need to raise

Joh so the sun shines :)

thinker 2,
the inability of many consumers to appreciate that others actually have an ability to look ahead i.e. foresight is what's causing so much stupidity. If you believe the Joh Government was corrupt then how would you describe the Goss, Beatty & Bligh outfits. They make Joh's gang pale in comparison.

It's interesting that, so many years later, Sir Joh still prompts quite emotional discussion. Some love him, some hate him.

Interestingly, from my personal experience, many of us who were too young to live through the Joh era (I moved to QLD in 1992, when we were in the midst of the Goss administration) are strongly in favour of the old guy. We have the benefits of his administration with very few of the pitfalls. We live with the impression that he brought Queensland kicking and screaming into the twentieth century. We have him to thank for much of the good stuff we enjoy or take for granted in Queensland.

It's the people of my parents' generation - the baby boomers - who seem most vocal in their opposition to Sir Joh, especially here in North Queensland. A colleague and good friend of mine, who grew up in the Burdekin, says that she is still ashamed to be a Queenslander because of 'what that peanut farmer did to us'. She was, I suspect, part of the generation most affected by the strictures of his regime. Her uni days - traditionally one's days of activism - fell during the apparently (I say apparently because I cannot speak from experience here) oppressive period of his tenure. From the people I have worked alongside and called friends, I suspect that it is disgruntled baby boomers who - as a result of Joh - keep inept Labor governments in power in this state and have done so almost continuously since the late 80s.

I, for one, can thank Sir Joh for his foresight in infrastructure development. The fact that my family had water to drink during the drought, and is not yet underwater, must be credited at least in part to his actions.

A man who should have ended his life in prison.
Who had a police minister who should have been with him.
And a police commissioner who was filling his pockets and a criminal.
I do not think so.
Strange truly, how such a person can be praised.

I was somewhat perplexed to see the relatively recently proposed Traveston dam mentioned in the context of this thread. Wasn't the relevant dam the proposed Wolfdene dam, for which virtually all the land had already been acquired, the one cancelled as one of the very first acts of the Goss government elected in 1989, after old Joh had been rolled as Premier by all but eight of his own?

I was even more perplexed to see the seeming conflation of the Bjelke-Petersen government of yesteryear which had advanced the Wolfdene dam storage, with the LNP of more recent times that is credited with most effectively opposing the Traveston project. Back in 1989, the then Liberal party had also opposed the Wolfdene project. Back in 1986 Joh (the Queensland National party) had been elected, with the aid of a few Liberal party defectors, to government in its own right, and there was just nowhere for an aspirant political egotist, Laberal or Libor, to strut its stuff! Things just weren't fair!

I thought I had better do some checking, lest my memory was failing and my preconceptions were leading me astray into thinking that those really were the good old days. So I doodled on my Google in my very own way, sifting all the stuff that it was sending me, hey!

My search revealed this website: http://wivenhoesomersetrainfall.com/new_page_7.htm . I would recommend it as an aid to understanding, on a longer term basis than the electoral cycle, the determinants of water storage and flood mitigation in the Brisbane river catchment.

If I don't oversimplify what the author of that site says, it seems that for the Wivenhoe dam to operate in the flood mitigation role for which it was designed, while simultaneously sufficient water storage for Brisbane's foreseeable requirements is able to be held, there was a concurrent need for another dam such as was already in the process of being provided at Wolfdene.

Those who knew better than Joh thus couldn't empty Wivenhoe in readiness for the inevitable heavy rain event.

Strange truly, how such a person can be praised.
Belly,
Joh is not being praised here, only people who know better & are capable of seeing this man's foresight are stating that he did for Queensland what no single Labor Politician has ever managed. He did some good things. Can you Belly state one thing that Labor has done which isn't to the detriment of Queensland?

The worst part about dams are they only hold so much. And when the overflow comes it is concentrated.
It would have been even better if the dam was dry before it started raining.
Tony is coming up with a plan to have dams in strategic places for future floods. They will have to be left dry though.
Climate change is amongst us, and can only get worse.
All around the world the affects are being felt.
I wouldn't mention joh at all.

579,
So well stated.

Yes 579, it must be global warming.

Lets face it, this flood is almost as big as those couple in the late 1800s, & we all know how bad the global warming was getting way back then, don't we?

This thread is definitely enough to talk any thinking person out of wanting to associate with the lefties. Their hate & viciousness knows no bounds.

In his day I was no fan of Joh. I wanted to see him gone, & was horrified when he kicked the libs from a football team into a basketball team.

I had not payed much attention to politics before then, too busy. But as soon as Joh had gone, I started to see everything falling apart.

I saw Goss give huge unfunded pay rises to teachers & leave all the rest of education short of cash, then watched everything else go down hill.

I saw a bunch, who are such great judges of character, that they have twice had leaders convicted of child molestation, pursue the old boy to the grave.

If the right can admire the achievements of Clem Jones, what is it in the left mentality that stops them accepting the achievements of those on the right. Why are they so full of hate.

Joh must have been a socialist at heart. He was the one who screwed the coal miners. He made them build their railways, & then give them to Queensland. Yes that's right, Queensland, not him.

How can you stop laughing when you see who sold them back.

Yes, if we still had the old bugger, Queensland would still be rich, & the hospitals would work.

Belly:>> A man who should have ended his life in prison.
Who had a police minister who should have been with him.
And a police commissioner who was filling his pockets and a criminal.<<

Belly I agree.

Hasbeen:>> Joh must have been a socialist at heart. He was the one who screwed the coal miners. He made them build their railways, & then give them to Queensland. Yes that's right, Queensland, not him.<<

Whatever concessions Joh got from the "money" we paid for one way or the other. Do you not remember the “white shoe” brigade and the fiefdom of Qld.

Otokonoko, please, please recant.

"are strongly in favour of the old guy. We have the benefits of his administration with very few of the pitfalls. We live with the impression that he brought Queensland kicking and screaming into the twentieth century. We have him to thank for much of the good stuff we enjoy or take for granted in Queensland."

The Joh era, which I lived through much of, from the day of the Cedar Bay raids by the Qld Navy, to his very welcome end, was a blackspot of moral turpitude, corruption, rampant crime, dishonesty, and civil repression.

Whether Goss, Beattie and Bligh are 'different' is really not the issue Individual. I am happy to acknowledge that longterm governments tend to corrupt all around them, and that is certainly the case with this end of the ALP Goss-Bligh spectrum, and Tony Fitzgerald spoke of this last year in a very forthright manner.

Neither Joh, nor anyone since, has brought Qld in to the 20th century.

Goss made a modest effort, but was filled with neo-liberalism, as was Hawke-Keating, and his only legacy can be seen in the 'efficiency' of our corporatised state government, and the rush to privatise every piece of social capital built up over many years.

The Joh politics was a mix of agrarian socialism with more than a cupful of pure corruption.

The relatively poor educational levels of Qlders, the high rates of illiteracy, 15% plus, was a reflection of the agricultural basis of the state, and the sheer size and decentralised nature of life here.

The Gerrymander was real enough, but was a legacy of the ALP era, fine-tuned for long lasting Country Party (National later) benefit.

Even now we suffer from a banal form of 'Queenslandism' that holds back clear thought and favours 'mates'. There is a very real anti-education and anti-intellectual mood throughout the state. A low grade form of nationalism.

To some extent, all states suffer this, and it is willingly encouraged in the media, and happily adopted by the populations.

Going by Joh's past record, there must have been a quid in it for him or his Party somewhere in the deal.

This was the man who (among many more examples) resisted World Heritage Listing for the Great Barrier Reef so it could be opened up to oil and gas expoloration, evicted Fred Hollows trachoma treatment team out of an aboriginal community because they were being ecouraged to enrol to vote, was exposed as both politically and personally corrupt on many ocassions and prone to be suckered by bogus cancer treatment and water-powered car conmen.

He was even worse than Bob Askin and would probably have got on well with Robert Mugabe.

by wobbles:>> He was even worse than Bob Askin and would probably have got on well with Robert Mugabe.<<

In all seriousness wobbles, that is an astute observation, it sums Joh up, it is factually correct.

Questions, are we happy with the state of politics in general?
Do we think all our Polly's should do better.
Is accountability for their actions both good and bad, Worth while?
I truly can think of only one,ALP politician WHO as near as bent as the flying peanut.
EXCLUDING ANY right wing power broker in NSW Parliament.
We as a result of Americas tragic event looking At what is said in politics.
I believe rightly.
Russ Heinz that ex Knight, and Joe, bought this country down, yes it is bad in Victoria, NSW once WA but have you noticed here a blindness?
I have, Conservatives should note,research or remember this rather silly old man did far more harm than good.
He alone stopped John Howard winning office at his first attempt.
IF we except dreadful things from our party, because it is our party, we are dishonest.
Now take a breath you know who, THINK before charging me with being one eyed, only a fool could claim that.

That's what I'm saying, TBC. Without the benefit of first-hand experience, us young'uns often only see the good side of what Sir Joh did. Much of the bad has been undone, and that which has been retained has been readily blamed on Joh's successors. I was only old enough to vote at the end of 2000, and only really had a political awakening a couple of years earlier than that. The first political controversy I can really remember was when Keating deposed Hawke, so Sir Joh is safely deposited in the 'relics box' for me. I'm learning, slowly but surely, that I need to listen to my elders. I maintain that much of my generation (or, rather, much of the minority of my generation with any political awareness) seems to favour Joh - but that's because we didn't have to live with him. Hopefully that's clearer than my first shambolic post in this thread.

Otokonoko, understood.

I know you've said you are a teacher, what of I am not aware, but do try to read Ross Fitzgerald's 'Red Ted': The life of EG Theodore, and another about TJ Ryan. They will give you a much needed background to the political history of Qld prior to Joh and the Nats.

Murphy was an ALP senior person, but an academic also, and his book is most interesting, as is Fitzgerald's.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9466999?q=joseph+ryan&c=book

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=kOoXdE16jA8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%27red+ted%27+the+life+of+eg+theodore&source=bl&ots=70-AeEMncx&sig=QtpFhCI2KsGs4WljHgX5zOY2Wpk&hl=en&ei=D3UtTc_6MsaXcYDa1L8I&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

They set the scene for the politics that came later. No doubt after years of ALP there was corruption as rampant as ever, but it seems not to have been aired too much.

Theodore suffered from claims of corruption before he moved to federal politics, as I recall.

The best history to start with on the years after the ALP, is the Fitzgerald Enquiry. Avoid any hagiography of Joh until after you've tackled Fitzgerald.

Hugh Lunn has one, and I think the PR chap who went to jail might have written one too, can't think of his name, one of Joh's minders.

I too Otonoko learn things on this site, and sometimes also, feel the need to recant.

TBC has it down pat for mine on this one. In fact crossing the Qld border successfully into Johland from Australia at that time was achieved by understanding," that a different set of rules existed".

If you met a stereotype that they (the Qld Police) were interesting in repressing, e.g. young, long haired, wearing a caftan, you were considered prone to assemble in groups larger than three. Of course you would be pulled up.

This was not so in the southern states at that time. In fact police were very helpful public servants. You could ask one for directions. And the youth were mostly politically aware. Not a minority. Joh's plan was show the rest of us weak kneed Australians, how too deal with dissent. Joh was not a well man.

To govern as he always had, with a complete lack of accountability was always his goal.
A complete megalomaniac, strangely not to bright, whom in the end
got off scot free, leaving behind him, a bevy certifiably corrupt, convicted scapegoats and scoundrels, boofheads and buffoons.

a bevy certifiably corrupt, convicted scapegoats and scoundrels, boofheads and buffoons.
got that right thinker2,
they've been running the show since apart from a short stint by Rob Borbidge.

I found Joh funny

Until I moved to Queensland

I was badly wrong

We can all learn much from some recent posts.
The open honesty of a couple who did not live in that era is some thing that highlights a lesson.
Those of us who lived then, saw the corruption remember the protesters being flogged by police.
Saw a knight go to prison and have his knighthood taken away, know things others must learn.
Or no not learn but some times comments can unintentionally be ill informed.
I note some one who did live then is intent on trying to pump air into a balloon full of holes, defame others who while maybe even [but not certainly bent] can never claim the years ,so many of them, of total corrupt government.
To Worship at the feet of such as Joe is to forget truth,to dishonor his party members ,to forget crimes that are unforgettable , and unforgivable.
Those who know this but still support him should remember, this country needs honesty in politics.
And my Friend , know you are busting to yet again say I am talking party politics read my thread about NSW politics ,soon bad politicians are one thing dishonest ones?

Why is it that people could see corruption 30years ago but not today. Is it because todays corruption is dished out by their political party ? Also, don't forget that most of the anti Joh brigade weren't/aren't Queenslanders.
Most of the discontent came to Queensland because it was the best out of all the states. They left Victoria/NSW due to the huge changes due to migration & Queensland had no death duties etc. Now, these very same traitors & their just as ignorant offspring are bagging the very outfit that provided what they so much sought after so much that they actually moved here. Now that's it's all but ruined they start complaining again. The only reason why Joh had to get the Police involved is because of the criminals in the unions. These very criminals have become bureaucrats in high position & they're doing the same damage now as they did then. It's just a big wheel of stupidity/corruption turning relentlessly. Belly, can you in all your conscience state that there is less corruption now then then ?

I think that corruption is rife in all our state Govts both Labor and Liberal.Remember Bob Askin? The new crooks are just bit more sophistocated and cunning.

Joh did some good things but he was no saint.

No need to call us

"Mutts" and " traitors" just because

We got rid of Joh

individual. You are a 'try hard' with your blind faith in a patently bad period in our politics.

There is no shame in being a Tory and recognising that your political group contains corrupt people, as it did without any question -see the Fitzgerald Enquiry- and as it no doubt still does -see 'human behaviour'.

Belly, cannot be charged with being a denier of corruption within his branch of the ALP (state branch at least) or the influence of that corruption on the running of the federal ALP. He is honest about the failures he sees, and everyone else knows about.

Joh did get rid of death duties, first, but not alone. And yes, his actions did produce a trickle of whiteshoe people to Qld to escape paying their dues.

The better question you, indeed all of us, could ask is why did the media not expose the blatant corruption during the Joh years, or Askin years for that matter?

Why did it take one Courier Mail journo and one TV reporter to bring down Joh?

The important question is why did 'ordinary people' avoid the corruption and pretend Qld was not corrupt?

Are we like all those Nazi era townsfolk who 'knew nothing' about the extermination of Jews and others at the army camp where they all worked?

What is it within our community that silences people and blinds them from hearing and seeing the bleeding obvious?

Queenslanders knew of the dodgy dealing under Joh, stretching right out into the furthest country towns. This took expression in the way the numerous 'boards' were organised and positions filled. By 'boards' I mean the hospital, fire and ambulance boards.

All filled with National Party cronies and, how strange, all buying their equipment from the local businesses whose owners filled the various board positions.

And this is what Abbott wants our hospitals to return to. Thanks Tony!

Our schools were abysmal, our hospitals under resourced, roads were good in safe National seats only, the police were corrupt beyond belief,public monies were handed out to mates.

Corruption should not be praised, individual.

individual:>> Why is it that people could see corruption 30years ago but not today. Is it because todays corruption is dished out by their political party ? Also, don't forget that most of the anti Joh brigade weren't/aren't Queenslanders.<<

There is a load of credence in your statement, but Qld was a fiefdom, no doubt. Another factor of the times was the change in the voting age from 21 to 18. That also impacted on the Joh government of the time. Perhaps the old cane cutters and white shoe brigade were pro Joh but the youth were not.

IF I AM EXILED I can not let you get away with that individual.
Time and again Sir you lay that charge against me.
Read power without glory, see NSW after march ,try to understand even my post here, excluding ANY RIGHT WING power broker in this NSW government from any measure of honest politicians.
I am forced Sir to devalue your thought process, it looks clear you, not me, can not see wrong on your side.
Sir Robert Askin, was as bent as Joe, no more no less, while not as good at it as Askin Nifty Nev ,who followed Askin too was bent.
Joe was worse than any leader of any state and you have to consider this.
If you are able that is.
Do ANY OF US need to support our party from truth honesty and accountability?
If Sir you want to hide any party's faults then hide them all,and your head too.
Last, think about this, truly think , AUSTRALIA sees the suffering in Queensland, it hurts us all, every one of us,we will give nation wide a great deal.
I will give more than I can afford, then a bit more, we all should have a quite month, Aussies are in trouble.
You slander me, often, but here you remind posters I AM NOT EVEN FROM QUEENSLAND,
Shame mate shame.
I have little regard for any one who thinks we are anything other than Aussies to gether.

Where's Hasbeen; Probably likin his wounds or something else, since that rediculous opening line that set this fred in motion.

No wounds to lick here 579, as I told you, I was not a great fan of Joh in the day. However I have come to realise since then that he did a much better job for the people of the state than anyone has since.

I think there is a fair bit of garbage about any corruption by Joh himself, although perhaps not by some of his ministers.

Joh did not come out of parliament a wealthy man. He had very little more than the property he started with. You don't have to look too deep to see many since him who made much more for themselves while in the ministry in QLD. You also find many more Labor retired politicians who are set up with company directorships, bought with favours given while they were in power.

The lefties don't hate Joh for his corruption, after all, they are very used to that with their own mob, no they hate him because he did a Maggie, & stopped the growth of radical unionism, stone dead. That was his unforgivable sin.

I love the way you turn a phrase 579. Succinct, colourful and with a dash of humour.

I somehow think Joh's wealth was sucked up by defending himself, his push for PM, and a bunch of dodgy investments encouraged most likely by the very same people he had been feeding the taxpayers money all those years.

As I said Joh wasn't so bright Hasbeen. You had to be there to understand the man.

I am quite a bit cooler now than I was last night.
I do try not to return serve, and I am too touchy.
See UNLIKE some conservatives I require better from EVERY politician.
And maybe ask too much of some posters, after all I ask for balance, it takes understanding to give that clearly some do not have that.
Joe,tell me it is not true, arranged a multi million dollar interest free loan for his son, now be careful it happened.
That brown paper bag in his office existed stuffed with money.
I see the slanted views, know some Labor people are criminals.
SEE HOWEVER some conservatives truly, unbelievable, hide or even except corruption from their team.
How can we ever? find a better out come if our most vocal conservatives defend such as this man , yet impose anti Labor views that are often untrue.
I offer my history of challenging them, 3 constant harpers, to like me start a thread that targets the bad in their team.
No one has ever taken the challenge, that shouts from the roof tops to me, third grade politicians can be forgiven if they are conservatives by a few.
Individual I take it back you should avoid politics/history you know little about the subject it may be the rose colored glasses you wear.

What a bunch of tossers. I've just watched the Wivenhoe Dam save my business. I don't give 2 hoots about Jackboots Joh and his cronies or any of the other ill-educated, misremebered twaddle that the chardonnay Socialists here are spouting. I marched in protest against several things that Joh did while I was a student, but the Dam was a genuinely inspired project that would never have occurred under the incompetence and mismanagement of a Labor Govt. If it had somehow been conceived by the slow-witted comrades it would have cost billions more than necessary and would probably not even be finished now.

The inflows to this flood were equivalent or exceeded the 1893 levels, which was a flood much, much larger than 1974.

I'm very glad that none of us had to experience that and it was all down to the Wivenhoe. That alone is a legacy that wipes out many, many sins in my mind.

There are thousands of people whose homes didn't go under who would agree with me.

It is good to see OLO userID 'Antiseptic' transitting the 'Users currently online' display this morning. His computer at least must be dry, and powered, whether by mains or battery.

Antiseptic, in his post of Tuesday, 11 January 2011 at 5:46:43 PM, with respect to the Brisbane floods, said:

"My premises went under to about 1.5m in 1974
to the best of my ability to research. The
projection is that the flood will stop about
a metre below my place, ..."

I'd be interested to know how accurate the forecast turned out to be, Antiseptic, now that we hear that the floodwaters are generally receding in the Brisbane River. What I have been hearing on Channel 7's rolling coverage of the event in the last 12 hours or so is that the flood peak at the Brisbane Port gauge was 4.46 metres, about one metre below the reading of 5.45 metres recorded in 1974. Did that difference translate to you getting about 0.5 metres through your premises, or did you escape flooding entirely as your earlier post indicated you might?

Returning more expressly to Hasbeen's topic, I note individual's comment that "Joh is not being praised here, only people who know better ...". Quite right. Joh's government was pretty much a one-man-band so far as policy direction was concerned, and that being so, that meant that in such matters as hydrological assessments and water infrastructure planning, he depended upon, and implemented, the good departmental advice then available to him. It will be interesting to see the extent to which the implementation of that advice, as far as it was allowed by others to go, may have been effective in mitigating the effects of this present flood.

I only wish I had been aware of J.V.Hodgkinson's webpage on the proposed Wolfdene Dam when posting to the OLO article 'What's a bone dry city worth?' in 2007. I used to think I had gone in a bit too hard with this post, http://bit.ly/hVYjTo . Not any more!

Hasbeen:>> I was not a great fan of Joh in the day. However I have come to realize since then that he did a much better job for the people of the state than anyone has since.<<

Cronyism, nepotism, back hander’s, scratch my back and I scratch yours, are all part and parcel of politics, and every state and federal government have been guilty of it to varying extents.

Both Petersen and Askin employed these tools liberally, the difference was Joh built the Wivenhoe, Hinz, and Burdekin dams and Bob built none.

Joh abolished death duties and the influx of retirees from other states laid the platform for the building of the Gold Coast, Bob demolished Sydney’s inner city architectural heritage.

Joh wanted long hair lay about to cop a flogging to keep them in line, Bob wanted to run over them in his car.

Hasbeen both were political bastards but one delivered sizeable infrastructure to his constituents. Both feathered their own nests and that of their family, friends, mates, and associates, but one was a performer and one was a dud.

I hated both governments with a passion but after they went Qld was left with massive infrastructure and corruption NSW was just left with massive corruption.

Forrest, the predictions were excellent. Feet are dry and the only problem is that we don't have power. The poor people on lower ground have suffered terribly.

Nifty attempted to be as big a criminal as Askin, he almost made it.
But he gave Sydney Darling Harbor, few today would remember the awful things said about it then, even less would not revel in its beauty today.
Antiseptic don't drink it but you are in fact seeming to say accountability for politicians does not matter if they do some thing you like.
Indi is not alone, I will lower my expectations from you too, but lets not forget next time you uncover a Labor fraud I may find some good things about him/her.
NSW leader has a nice hair style thats about it, Rudd still looks good on TV but does he mean what he says?
Get in there you Polly's make a quick shilling history, or rather your version off it,will forget your bad points if you are a conservative

One hundred years ago to the day, yesterday, January 13, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen was born in Dannevirk, New Zealand.

Spooky, eh what, with the flood peak of what, if Antiseptic is right, was a one-in-a-hundred-year rain event similar to that of 1893, being a metre lower than that resulting from the significantly smaller rain event of 1974, occurring one hundred years to the day later. Due largely, it seems, to the Wivenhoe Dam his one-man-band government pushed through working to some extent exactly as his departmental hydrological and engineering advice had said it would.

I feel it necessary to clarify the last sentence of my first post to this thread.

I wasn't meaning to imply that those charged with the operation of the Wivenhoe Dam in the present day did anything other than the best that was possible in managing its discharge in the circumstances that currently exist. Those circumstances are ones in which, due to the ill-advised 1990 cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam storage component of the overall Brisbane water supply and flood mitigation capability, the operators of the Wivenhoe Dam were effectively not free to release water because the government was counting on that water for Brisbane's supply.

Not only did the Goss government elected in 1989 immediately cancel the Wolfdene Dam part of this visionary project, but they fired the top two government hydrologists as well! It was these decisions that robbed the Wivenhoe Dam operators of the ability to be better prepared for flood mitigation in 2011.

The Lord Mayor of Brisbane has, understandably, called for an inquiry into the SEQ flood disaster. See: http://bit.ly/ijsUY3 , which said, inter alia:

"Senior engineering and hydrological sources,
not authorised to comment on the record, told
The Australian that investigations need to be
conducted into the operations of Wivenhoe Dam,
which had been forced to release massive
volumes of water to reduce the risk of a
catastrophic collapse."

How much even lower may this flood have been if Joh's foresight had been acknowledged in 1989?

Or higher if Wivenhoe had collapsed?

Interesting stuff Forrest.

Wonder if the fellow who worked as the Goss politico-gopher had anything to do with the decision?

What's his name again?

The one who so proudly took credit for creating the school chaplaincy plan in Qld.

Belly, unlike you, I'm not especially party-politically aligned. I've voted Labor all my life, but I doubt I'll ever vote for the Party again. The record of mismanagement at every level is the only thing impressive about them.

During this flood the only public figure I've had any confidence in has been Campbell Newman. Gillard and Bligh have been all about managing perceptions, while Newman has been about finding solutions.

No, he's not Labor.

As for Joh Bjelke-Peterson, I tend to agree with sonofgloin but I don't really care much, since he's dead and buried unlike the people running the State into the ground today.

Forrest, I could not agree more. During the early phases of the build up to this event the managers of Wivenhoe were releasing very little. I recall taking the kids to see just one floodgate open only about 2 weeks ago.

I'm not known for having much time for bureaucrats, but I do have some sympathy for those running this dam.

What are their instructions from their political masters? Perhaps it's time that their instructions were published, & open to scrutiny by all.

Then they have the problem that at even moderately large releases, some flooding occurs, preventing road access for some. I'm sure they get loud complaints these people, & the politicians when this happens.

No matter how much they release, some will reckon it's too much, others too little.

Then there is no "right" amount to release, so even the operators can't know if they got it near to right at any particular time. It really is a job that even I could get wrong.

As you all know and most don't understand, I am a born again Christian, born of the will of God of the incoruptable seed of the Word of God through faith in Jesus who is called Christ.
50 years ago my Grandmother said to me, as I was going to vote for the first time, " Don't vote labor as they have no imagination, vote liberal."
My dad a rusted on socialist had always taught us kids that the libs were the enemy of the working class, so I asked him "why did your mother tell me to vote liberal" and this was his answer "Son your grandmother is a woman and all women love Bob Menzies because of child support".
31 years ago through a personal cricis I found Jesus and followed him and found that I had no imagination.
50 years after the word from my Grandmother the penny droped and I now understand perfectly what she meant.
Jesus came to save our soul of which our imagination is part and I now have a very fertile imagination, essential for faith which is the substance of things hoped for so you can spend the rest of your days arguing over good and evil or live to the full. The choice is yours.

complements of the season Regards Richie10

Bjelke-Petersen

Was undoubtedly corrupt

And a Christian

Richie ten, you know I too once was Christian, surely the God I trusted was a different one than yours?
My fable was Christ, wonderful promises and gifts.
He said in his holly book if you looked both yes and no to almost every question.
He did say give Caesar his due , and he threw the money lenders out of the, well you know all that.
Judge not less you be judged, I have doubts, true doubts, your God ever yes ever, told you or me one side of politics was always right the other wrong.
Joe has been truly described in the post above mine.
History is full of Christians who did dreadful things, children done great harm for a start.
You have every right to your belief but if I was you, I would consider why all humanity, every religion, can not be one while some, you no less than ANY OTHER find reasons to divide us in your Gods name.
Judge not Richie or you will be judged.

Hasbeen posts, with respect to the flood mitigation management of the Wivenhoe Dam, that:

"I'm not known for having much time for bureaucrats,
but I do have some sympathy for those running this dam.
... there is no *right* amount to release, so even the
operators can't know if they got it near to right at
any particular time. ..."

Whilst ever attempts are being made to use the Wivenhoe Dam flood control compartment for two jobs, instead of the one job for which it was designed, Hasbeen is quite correct. It is in no way the fault of the dam operators that the other part of the project to provide both adequate Brisbane water supply, as well as flood mitigation capability for the Brisbane River valley, the Wolfdene Dam, was never completed. The Wivenhoe operators have always been at the mercy of their political masters with respect as to the extent that punting with public safety has been by direction undertaken in making the storage capacity of that dam look better than its design ever meant it to be.

There is nevertheless a *right* amount to release, and that is the amount that empties the flood control compartment of the dam completely.

Needless to say, such management is inconsistent with the now-polished Australian(?) political art form of creating artificial shortage in a land of plenty that now pervades the country. The Wivenhoe dam management aren't responsible for that.

Without the cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam, it would have been unlikely that the situation of what, courtesy of J.V.Hodgkinson's analysis of the official historical rainfall records for the catchment, we can now see to be artificial shortage in SEQ, could have been brought about.

Without that artificial shortage being brought about, the privatisation of water supply would have made no commercial sense. The question remaining is as to who benefitted, and how that was electorally achieved. sonofgloin's post of Thursday, 13 January 2011 at 10:42:41 AM, suggests a reason that provides a good lead-in to answering this question: lowered voting age.

The low point of all this, is Gillard prattling on today about Obama offering American expertise, to solve our flood situation/problems etc.

Perhaps if the U.S. would actually do something about the pollution they create, we would not have such dramatic climate change events in the first place. Why don't they offer their so called expertise to Haiti, where it is truly needed.

The Earth is now entering it's own defence phase and history proves that the Earth is capable of looking after it's own best interests successfully.
As for man, we are still less likely to survive a planet wide calamity, than a cockroach. Despite our self professed intellect, science and belief in omnipotent beings etc.

I think catastrophic events will increase in frequency. Hopefully the current flood situation will give our river systems etc a much needed flush and refresh our arable lands and flood plains. The planet is making the decisions at this point in history, as it it always will.

Gratuitous politics is the least required thing at this point, and pretending that Joh was a valuable human being, is equivalent to pretending that the modern day version of Joh, Tony Abbott, is a visionary.

sonofgloin, in his post of Thursday, 13 January 2011 at 10:42:41 AM, in explaining the electoral unpopularity of Joh that saw the demise of the Queensland National Party government at the end of 1989, a demise landmarked by the almost immediate cancellation by the incoming ALP Goss government of the Wolfdene Dam part of the then publicly-owned Brisbane water supply and flood mitigation scheme, says:

"Another factor of the times was the change
in the voting age from 21 to 18. That also
impacted on the Joh government of the time.
Perhaps the old cane cutters and white shoe
brigade were pro Joh but the youth were not."

Well, sonofgloin, if the youth of the time (1989) were not pro-Joh, they sure took their time expressing that in the ballot box!

The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in March 1973. The government that Joh had led did not get voted out until late 1989. The 'youth' of 1973 were by then aged from 34 to 36 years old. Between 1973 and 1986 successive elections in Queensland had resulted in increasing majorities in the two-party-preferred Liberal/National vote over the ALP. So how were the majority of the youth that had progressively become entitled to enroll and vote since 1973 and up until 1986 voting? Not against the Bjelke-Petersen governments, it would seem.

What it seems a number of posters have recited in this thread is the conventional wisdom that a significant number of those who had previously supported Joh up until 1986 changed their vote to one against Joh in 1989, linking that claim to the corruption issues arising out of the Fitzgerald inquiry. Joh lost the premiership when all but eight of the National Party parliamentary members allegedly signed a letter indicating their lack of continuing support for him, resigning from both that office and the Parliament on 1 December 1987.

It could, perhaps, justifiably be claimed that in 1989 many of the previous supporters of Joh's governments voted out those who had already voted out Joh.

TBC

Forrest Gump

I was 'on the booths' when Goss won, working for the ALP.

This is but a 'one booth' ancedotal experience, but it was a familiar tale, as I recall when meeting other booth workers, from all sides.

By the time of the election, Ahern was running Qld, not Joh. Gunn had already started the process by initiating the Fitzgerald Enquiry, and many in the Nats were alarmed at the levels of corruption exposed.

These were not 'bad' people, just bred National supporters who had believed in Joh, and too late found out everything about their government was corrupt.

The Nats that took our ALP HTV cards were very clear why they were voting ALP.

They had not 'changed their minds' on the 'good' of the ALP, they simply felt cheated by Joh, and the entire Ahern team that took over.

I suspect this will happen in NSW too, when thousands of ALP voters, bred ones too, give the ALP a wide berth and vote Liberal or Green.

Qld has an unquestioning culture (and we are not alone in that) so the young of the 1973 era would have been just as unquestioning as their parents, and just as happy with Joh.

Those who marched were an absolute minority, so although they probably did not vote for Joh, their numbers would have been far too small, particularly within the gerrymandered areas.

Bligh is currently enjoying support, for appearing to be 'decent' about the floods, and I too believe she has 'appeared' well, particularly compared to Gillard's performances, but her test is how she ensures Qld is rebuilt, without it becoming a massive BER-insulation scandal.

Which it has every chance of becoming.

In twelve months time, there will be an army of subbies left unpaid as contractors fail and go broke, to open up again as a 'different' company.

Joh's era thrived on such scams, and few governments want to tighten things up.

Continued

My point in interpreting the 1989 Queensland elections in this way is to highlight the role of the many unsupported assertions as to the corruption of that era being JOH'S CORRUPTION in helping to hide potentially serious issues in the present day, maybe even as to literal public safety, that can now be seen to have arisen from the cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam project, from public examination.



My witness is Tony Fitzgerald himself.



This is a link to a Lawyers' Weekly report of the full text of an introductory address given on 29 July 2009 by Tony Fitzgerald before the inaugural Tony Fitzgerald Lecture at Griffith University: http://bit.ly/h9y3by .

Whilst generally observing that the corruption that was found to have surrounded the Bjelke-Petersen government remains, albeit perhaps in a different incarnation, around government in Queensland to the present day, Tony Fitzgerald specifically warned in that address as to:


"secrecy [being] re-established by sham claims that
voluminous documents [are] "Cabinet-in-confidence".


This is something of which the public in Queensland need to be particularly wary does not occur with respect to documentation relating to the management of the Wivenhoe Dam in the years since 1990.



Fitzgerald also said:

"Under Beattie, Labor decided that there were
votes to be obtained from Bjelke-Petersen's
remaining adherents in glossing over his
repressive and corrupt misconduct."

With all due respect, I suggest Fitzgerald has erred in attributing the corruption of that era to Joh himself, and a tolerance of it to those who voted for his governments. Joh's governments had become increasingly autocratic one-man-bands. He increasingly depended upon advisers, some of whom were in positions wherein they could abuse their trust, and evidently did. Lacking personal avarice, I think Joh had become a roadblock to some who wanted to take advantage of their proximity to, or position within, government to advance their own ends.

As Fitzgerald observes, the corruption continues. Who has benefitted? Not Joh. Not the Queensland public.

I think Joh, in 1986, may have been deliberately electorally 'set up'.

Back to the Wivenhoe, it seems that the management have been releasing significant amounts of water so that the dam can mitigate the impacts of a likely cyclonic rain event sometime during the rest of the summer. Let's not forget we have nearly 3 months of wet season still to run.

Without the foresight of Jackboots Joh that would not be possible. As much as I cheered when the old mongrel was deposed, he should have a statue erected to him for the Wivenhoe. I'd donate for that.

What makes people to look at Fitzgerald as some sort of moral gauge. I don't know the man but from what I recall he was just a lawyer who got given a ride on the Goss/Beatty bandwagon. If Fitzgerald was of such impeccable integrity how is it that Goss & Beatty never had to spend a night on an uncomfortable bunk.
It may work on most people but to bring up Joh doesn't make thinking people overlook the other shonkeys.

individual

You either know nothing about the Fitzgerald Inquiry or you are being deliberately obtuse.

Bill Gunn, Joh's deputy, put in train the Fitzgerald Enquiry.

Goss was still in the Opposition.

Beattie was not in parliament.

The Fitzgerald Enquiry dealt with the Joh era.

The Fitzgerald Enquiry is no longer running.

Fitzgerald was not 'just a lawyer'. He was the man charged with the task of running the enquiry, which he did.

From that process, other states have been forced to create structures that keep an eye on what goes on.

Victoria, ever the corrupt state, has yet to do that but maybe the new government will overturn the ALP objection to open (well, more open) government there.

This thread is about Joh, not 'other shonkeys', which is why people are writing about Joh.

Most people, but clearly not you, regard Fitzgerald as a decent man who undertook a very hard task, knowing that politicians and business people all over the state would wish him to drop dead before he finished his work.

He paid a high personal cost for the work he did, as did his family. The punters of Qld benefitted, but are now, as usual, allowing politicians and businessmen to revert to the old order.

The recent jailing of one politician, but none of the people who were also involved in the bribery, speaks volumes of the need for a 'token scalp' to be submitted to the people.

By all means individual, keep asking questions about those now hiding the truth, in parliament, in business, in the media, but it might be best not to malign Fitzgerald's work or character with a cheap shot about him here.

Come on Bluey, give it a bit of a rest.

You must have been one of the fully paid up members of Fitzgerald adoration society. I suppose it's a left thing, but I have never before, or since, seen such adoration poured on one bloke in my life. Whats more, I have never seen anyone more capable of lapping up that adoration than Fitzgerald.

It was like watching a combination of the three monkeys, & the Shakespeare of my school days. Pure as the driven snow, & every word a pearl. Feature writers would analyse every word, looking for those pearls of wisdom that they knew must be hidden there. It was so sickeningly puerile that I turned off.

Fortunately I was not in TV coverage at the time, or I may have had trouble keeping food down.

For years afterward our "B" grade journalists would quote some minor thing the man had said, as if it was if it was the word of god.

Hang about, you still think it was.

As can now be seen, Joh's government was not so much the epitome of a corruption problem, as it was a POLITICAL problem for those having a vested interest in Australian democracy remaining essentially a two-major-party-alternating system of governance.

By the time he entered Parliament in 1946 at the age of 35, Joh was already a successful self-made man, possessed of the common sense and self-confidence frequently associated with such. He did not acquire family responsibilities of his own until he married in 1957 at the age of 46. Such was a sound base upon which to build a political career. Once he had become leader of his party in 1968, the combination of his political common sense with the electoral malaportionment legislation that he had inherited from the ALP government of 1949 and adapted for National Party advantage, meant he was likely Premier for life, or until he chose to retire. Joh wasn't the retiring sort.

In that situation the ALP had a problem: they were unlikely ever to win government against Joh's popular commonsense policies. The Liberal Party had a problem: they were unlikely ever to become the major coalition partner in the formulation and direction of policy. Erstwhile influential ostensible supporters of the Queensland National Party had a problem: Joh's views had come to be the most highly regarded within the Parliamentary National Party, and would usually prevail.

So, too, did any entity with an interest in being able to put a figurative thumb on the electoral scales that might influence just which of the two major parties would form governments from time to time, as happened elsewhere in Australia, but not in Queensland, have a problem. In 1987 Queensland still kept its own State electoral rolls independently of those maintained by the then relatively newly formed Australian Electoral Commission and jointly used by the other States, and Joh was not about to change that.

Joh had therefore to be destroyed.

Hasbeen's opening post threatens the sustained attack on Joh's reputation: Wivenhoe's performance memorializes it.

Ok Blue Cross,
Let's put this into another context. What has the Fitzgerald Commission achieved, at what cost to the taxpayer & what are we getting out of it now. You seem rather enlightened on the subject so it shouldn't take too long to throw these facts on the table. Many thanks in advance.

Both sides of politics have harboured corrupt people. This true is Individual,
but Joh's govt was rotten to the core.

I'd like "you" to list the certifiably corrupt things done by the Goss Govt or even the Beatty Govt for that matter. Even your imaginary ones will do. And as for Fitzgerald, thankfully the judiciary are independent, otherwise we would have continuous homogenised Govt instead of democracy. With 25 year incumbencies, like we did with Joh and Co.

Queensland stepped out of the dark ages and flourished as best it could, even though the 25 yr Bjleke Petersen reign pretty much destroyed the environment.

Even the Great Barrier Reef would have been mined if it was up to Joh. World Heritage listing put paid to that thankfully.
And Fraser Island would now be a sandbar.

Thinker 2......I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of reading such fine and true words.

Lets hear it for old Joh......yeah right....now how do you stick out your tongue and blow a raspberry.

He may of seemed right at the time, however those times are long gone.

BLUE

I think we should remember many here did not live in the Joe era.
An Australian folly in politics, even our brightest are doing it here, is to compare the others sides sins.
Not keep watch on those on our side.
I am more than aware Labor has its crooks,its fools, and some who like Joe,in my opinion, are/have been, unable to control those they lead, a job we expect them to do.
Joe had a thing going for him,confrontation and fearless at that.
He built a reputation for his union battles ,like electricity,yet paid contractors much more , it gave him a victory,one people wanted,against unions.
His links to the white shoe brigade gave Queensland its gold coast and more.
The Russ Heinz dam, is that this one? was there a name change?
Can it be,at the first sign of someone being offended at bent politicians the answer is not to DEMAND BETTER but to put a mirror in the way to deflect the beam, highlight, even magnify Labors crimes.
Terry whats his name the police commissioner, the young country party member who found his way in to a jury and stopped Joe going to prison.
Joes arranged loan from Japanese interests to his son,interest free.
Are our [Australian voters interests ] aimed at accountability from both sides or just defending our own.
The QLD that fell in love with this man has much to answer for.
We want surely to think the buck stops here is still our leaders promise,to not have that screams we can not trust our leaders

Belly, the Joh Bjelke era is long gone. What has replaced it is the era od Labor incompetence. You talk of corruption under the Nationals and there is no doubt it was there, but you forget the long line of corrupt or otherwise reprehensible Labor Ministers, and that's without even discussing the issue of incompetence that has been such a feature of every Labor government since Goss.

Just as I disliked Howard and much of what he stood for, I see that the people who have succeeded him are much worse. not merely authoritarian, but hypocritical incompetents to boots.

I know this hurts you and I know you agree to a large extent. Please believe me that I would mych rather be singing the praises of the Labor Governments. The fact that I cannot is entirely their own work.

Belly asks:

"The Russ Heinz dam, is that this one?
Was there a name change?"

No, Belly, the Hinze Dam has nothing to do with the discussion. It is a much smaller dam, built purely to provide a water supply for the Gold Coast, which was Hinze's electorate in that era. It has recently had its wall increased in height to increase its storage capacity. There has been no name change.

The Wolfdene Dam was to have been the other major component of the Brisbane water supply and flood mitigation scheme of which the Wivenhoe Dam comprises the first part. Unfortunately, the Wolfdene Dam was never built, even though all the land had already been acquired prior to the 1989 elections. Perhaps an aspect of the cancellation of that project by the incoming Goss government was one wherein blind passionate dislike of Joh was allowed to override the completion of a well-planned water supply system for Brisbane, one reliant upon the ability to store water from intermittent high-rainfall events like the one we have just seen, to deal with the just as predictable droughts.

It looks like full use of the flood mitigation compartment of the Wivenhoe Dam in this recent high-rainfall event may not have been able to be made because, in the absence of the Wolfdene Dam, the flood compartment was already being used to augment the water storage capacity of the dam. If this is true, correct use of the flood compartment may have resulted in the recent flooding in Brisbane having been even smaller.

As it is, it looks like rainfall equivalent to that which produced the 8 metre level of the 1893 flood was held back by the Wivenhoe Dam such that only a level of 4.5 metres was reached at the city gauge.

The need to prove 'rottenness to the core' of the last Bjelke-Petersen government is exactly what drove the (aborted) perjury trial. My recollection is that a principal hostile witness was one of the 'cronies' who didn't get his poker machines legalized. Is that right?

Sorry Forrest, I can't agree with you there. Stopping the Wolfdene dam was one of the few good things Goss did. I thought it was funny that his plan to stop it got him elected, & the other good thing he tried to do, [build a second road to the Gold Coast] got him kicked out.

I was on the water management plan public committee for a couple of rivers, & got to know some of the water resources blokes. Privately many of them had wanted Wolfdene stopped. It would have been a useless shallow thing with low yield, & high evaporation.

Water resources had a number of high yield easy to build dam sites, but Joh didn't like them, probably for political reasons. They were just as frustrated when Beattie rejected their carefully planed sites in favour of anything that would upset the nationals.

So much of what Beattie did was driven by malice. Not only rejecting suitable dam sights, but the dreadful council amalgamations.

When through total lack of thought or planing, & buying green votes, he found Brisbane running out of water, Beattie grabbed for council owned water infrastructure. Those resources had been payed for by local rate payers, & built by prudent councils. When councils resisted, Beattie got nasty.

After stealing the water, he then introduced his council amalgamations to show councils who was boss.

So sorry, I can't agree Forrest. It is not just incompetence, it is the vindictive nature of most Labor leaders I have seen, that leaves us with such a mess when they go. We will still be paying for his nastiness, when he is merely a blot on the page of history.

I'll take Joh's legacy any day.

Forrest of every poster here now or ever in OLO I would rate you as intelligent as any.
Mate you know I am often more critical of my team than some conservatives.
This thread is headed lets hear it for Joe.
Not lets try to show labors faults, Shadow Minister,Hasbeen, and Individual, have refused my challenges time after time to highlight faults on their side.
But in every thread, remotely about politics, defend them,and try to turn it to an anti Labor one.
An inquiry is to be held in to this flood,it will talk of this dam, it may well be white washing.
IF it is I will be the first to openly charge my side with it.
POLITICS should be about being better taking it on the chin when wrong, looking for improvement.
Tell me what government, in living history, had so many convicted or charged, what leader was so blind he did not know.
But tell me this, please tell me, if we defend the indefensible, try to hide our sides failures why do we take an interest in politics, we if true have no interest in honesty in government.
It is just not good enough to chant anti Labor things but refuse the truth air.

Belly says:

"This thread is headed lets hear it for Joh.
Not lets try to show labors faults, ...."

I can't answer for other posters' views, Belly, but putting the focus upon how good a government decision it was to both build the Wivenhoe Dam, and also provide for the water supply requirements for the increase in SE Queensland population that was foreseeable even in the early eighties by the building of an additional dam, is exactly what I have been trying to do in this thread. Joh was at the helm when those decisions were taken, and they can now be seen to be very good ones.

Whilst the cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam, for which the land had already been acquired, by the incoming Goss government in 1990, as Hasbeen suggests may have had some intrinsic merit, the failure to construct either it or an alternative and thereby complete a well conceived project that served the public interest in SEQ must inevitably attract some criticism.

Some may see that failure as vindictiveness aimed at minimising Joh's standing in public memory. Others may see it as the seizing of a political opportunity to run down the infrastructure capital of Queensland and divert the earmarked funding to the attainment of other political objectives. I see it as the early outworking of an Australia-wide plan to strip the public of its infrastructure assets.

That is why I declined to take the opportunity given in TBC's post of Friday, 14 January 2011 at 5:50:18 PM, to identify the 'politico-gopher' he suggested may have had something to do with the cancellation decision. It would have been akin to shooting the messenger. That is also why I have not so far even mentioned Anna Bligh in this thread: she did not even enter the Queensland Parliament until 1995, well after the decision had been taken.

Understandably, Belly, you see this as one political 'team' in Australian politics versus another, each of which believes it is working in Australia's best interests. I suggest the real picture is different.

I think what I think Forrest is that both sides have faults.
That no one team gets it right.
And I think, if we trawl, we will find both good and bad in both sides.
Dams, we know just how emotional they are, have seen them canceled in NSW and QLD recently, after not in my back yard protests.
Now if we forgive Joe,forget for any reason, that true nature of his government.
Then I should forgive this NSW mob!
NEVER I want better from my side, believe we are the party of real reform real change, currently hiding under our own bed afraid to be our selves.
But if more challenge the wrongs done by Rudd/NSW we will be better.
I will not change my view if Joe did no wrong no one ever did.

P.S. thanks Blue for your kind remarks.

I'm thinking that you might have been young and not conservative? during the Reign of Terror that was the Joh Govt. The Queensland Police were running amuck in the latter years of Joh's tenure and this was sorely felt by the youth movements. I remember preposterous stories printed by the Courier mail like, "Uni students plot to blow bridge" a completely made up story about a group of students planning to blow up the Storey Bridge, in order that Brisbane and the Qld economy be disrupted.

These sorts of myths were perpetrated by the media in league with the Premiers office routinely, in order that Police be given greater powers to search and destroy, and I mean destroy!. I am sorry to express myself so vehemently about this, but you had to be there.

Joh was nothing more than fanatical head scoundrel, in a complete autocracy of scoundrels, rotten to the core, and without equal in terms of corruption in Australian political history.

A Gov't so out of control that it was reminiscent of a beast fed on steroids and hormones, who's legs were no longer able to support it's own weight.

And finally I think it's drawing a long Wivenhoe to suggest that Joh had the dam built for any visionary reason anyway Hasbeen.

Posted by Forrest Gumpp:>> The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in March 1973. The government that Joh had led did not get voted out until late 1989. The 'youth' of 1973 were by then aged from 34 to 36 years old. Between 1973 and 1986 successive elections in Queensland had resulted in increasing majorities in the two-party-preferred Liberal/National vote over the ALP. So how were the majority of the youth that had progressively become entitled to enroll and vote since 1973 and up until 1986 voting? Not against the Bjelke-Petersen governments, it would seem.<<

I stand corrected, thanks Forrest.

,

sonofgloin,

Thank you for your gracious admission, but you are not necessarily completely wrong in looking for a change in the electoral support base for an explanation for Joh's eventual political demise. Its just that the origin of a substantial part of that ultimately 'dethroning' electoral influence may not have resided in the 'youth vote' of those times so much as in something that was perhaps able to be made to look very much like it.

Perhaps a good name for it may be/have been 'involuntary youth proxy vote'.

The thing about proxy votes is that they are actually cast by a person or entity different from the person who acquires or holds the right to vote in the first case. In a corporate context, holders of an original voting entitlement may be legally free to assign their voting rights to another person or entity. In the Australian electoral context, State or Federal, any such transfer of voting entitlement is, and always has been, completely illegal.

An obscure submission to one of the now routinely held Parliamentary inquiries into the conduct of Federal elections, those of 2004, contains a hint as to the potential existence of such an 'involuntary youth proxy vote' being evidenced in the overall official electoral enrolment statistics for Australia near the end of 1973. That submission contended that there was of the order of half a million more electoral enrolments made between March 1973 and November 1973 than would have been expected. A share of those questionable enrolments, perhaps better described as 'proxy voting opportunities', would have related to Queensland, and, in the very finely balance electoral malapportionment that existed in Queensland until 1990, could have been decisive in sending overall State electoral results first one way, then the other.

Returning more directly to Hasbeen's topic, it now seems that the Wivenhoe Dam, operated correctly in the original role for which it was conceived, could have totally prevented the flood in Brisbane. See: http://bit.ly/gABxPF and: http://bit.ly/hGCX05 . It was simply kept too full, in the absence of other originally planned storage, in the face of warnings.

Joh was nothing more than fanatical head scoundrel, in a complete autocracy of scoundrels,
thinker 2,
you mean scoundrels like those who recently tumpeted about helping flood victims but now set a means test max of $48,000 ?
Did Joh act like this in '74 ?

Was Joh a scoundrel?

One certain thing is he was

A Country Member.

One certain thing is he was,
shintaro,
What about those who are ? Those who have the positions now ?

C'mon Shintaro, you're full of accusation for people long gone but you've got nothing to remark on those doing the shonky deeds now ? such silence is the trademark of a hypocrite with no substance & even less backbone.

Individual

Not "accusation", well-known

And common knowledge

Joh just avoided

Shame and retribution by

Kicking the bucket

Ay, muse tis common.

Chic myopia.

Obama is white.

And Palin is black.

The Earth is frying.

Faith, no thought required.