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.