Joh Bjelke-Petersen - Notes from Pig City

Happy birthday to Zoo

Music, Qld Politics / December 11, 2012 / 5 minutes of reading

Note for overseas and interstate readers: The Zoo is a music venue in the quaintly-named inner suburb of Fortitude Valley, in my hometown of Brisbane. It’s 20 years old this week, a startling achievement in an industry where places to play appear and often disappear in the space of 12 months. This is my happy birthday message to one of my favourite places, which changed the face of the Valley, and helped change the way we viewed our own city during a time of great change.

The Zoo was always different.

The first time I walked up that short but steep staircase, it was to see former Go-Between Robert Forster. The stairs brought you not to the entrance, but smack into the middle of the venue. There was a small stage in the far right-hand corner; a basic wooden platform less than a foot above the floor. I heard the cracking of pool balls as I walked in.

In the left-hand corner was the serving area. The conditions of the nascent venue’s license at the time meant that food had to be provided with drinks. Being an impoverished student (and a lousy cook besides), there were many times when the Zoo’s cheap, nourishing meals were seriously appreciated.… Read more..

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Flowers in the wheelie bin

Music, Qld Politics / July 10, 2012 / 7 minutes of reading

In 1977, John Lydon – née Rotten – launched a vitriolic attack on the monarchy that brutally summed up the status of England’s youth in the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee: “When there’s no future, how can there be sin? / We are the flowers in the dustbin / We’re the poison in your human machine / We’re the future, your future!”

God Save The Queen, as performed by the Sex Pistols, is one of the greatest protest songs of all time, but I’ve long pondered over these lyrics. Was Lydon inferring that Britain’s future had been literally thrown out with the garbage, as the nation celebrated? Or making a statement about how great art can be constructed from throwaway refuse – one of punk’s defining tenets?

Or was he saying that art itself is nurtured by the oppression of the state? “We’re the poison in your human machine” is a wonderfully subversive argument to this effect, and it’s a line with ongoing resonance to Queensland. It’s a common assumption, for example, that the 1970s punk explosion in Brisbane, spearheaded by the Saints (who, let’s not forget, pre-dated the Pistols by as much as two years) was a reaction to the excesses of life in Queensland under Joh Bjelke-Petersen.… Read more..

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Dogs in the wheelie bin: Brisbane-Guangzhou

Music / April 25, 2012 / 8 minutes of reading

We assemble at Brisbane International Airport at 6am. Our friend Dave Kettley, from the New Christs, has emailed advice about flying on China Southern Airlines. The New Christs are hardy veterans of the European touring circuit. “Spread the load and definitely all go to the counter as a large group,” he writes. “Is your manager coming from Oz with you? The Staph?”

That’s me. The Golden Staph. Thanks, Dave.

“Make use of the extra person,” Dave’s email continues. “Pack as light as you can. Put your pedals in your bag but your leads in your case – they’re considered a strangling weapon and will be confiscated.”

We’re all at the counter, but my carry-on luggage is full of strangling equipment: computer cords, phone chargers and the like. Who knows what or whom I’ll need them for? I put the computer cords in my case, but forget about the others.

Thankfully, it doesn’t matter. Kelly, our customer assistant at the China Southern desk, doesn’t seem to like her job much but she’s incredibly cool. She checks our passports and her hand’s like a magic wand as she waves through everyone’s gear, probably saving the band a few hundred dollars in extra weight.… Read more..

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Bean-counters at the gates of Queensland

Australian Politics, Qld Politics / April 3, 2012 / 3 minutes of reading

And here I was thinking that Queensland wasn’t about to return to the Dark Ages. That nice, “comparatively urbane” Campbell Newman wouldn’t do anything really dumb in his first fortnight, like, say, axe the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Would he?

Oh, wait. He would. He has.

“…The Queensland government has decided not to proceed with the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards in 2012 which will save Queensland taxpayers $244,475, not including the cost of resourcing the awards.

“The government would like to acknowledge all the sponsors, judges, stakeholders, entrants and winners for their valued contribution to the program to date.”

Well, that’s nice. Clearly though, their contributions are no longer valued – or perhaps more to the point, their contributions are nowhere near as politically valuable as a holy budget surplus. I can only guess, given the speed with which the axe has fallen, that literary prizes fall under the umbrella of the “waste and mismanagement” Newman railed against while in opposition.

On one hand, it’s smart politics. Newman will guess that not too many people in the arts sector will have voted for him, and probably never will. This won’t be news for more than five minutes outside of the minority of Queenslanders that actually, you know, read books.… Read more..

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Reflections on the Queensland election

Australian Politics, Qld Politics / March 26, 2012 / 4 minutes of reading

I don’t get excited about Queensland politics the way I used to, which explains why I haven’t bothered to blog about the state election until now, with the dust settling on the result. They just don’t make politicians like Joh Bjelke-Petersen any more, although Bob Katter did do his best to hold up his end of the agrarian socialist/social reactionary bargain with a campaign that lurched from the bold to the bizarre.

Actually, I have to credit Katter – at least he addressed some of the real issues Queensland is going to have to face in the next decade: I admire his feisty representation of suppliers in the fight against our supermarket duopoly, and he’s spot on, too, in his concerns about the management of the mining boom (especially coal seam gas) and how to balance that with agricultural interests. I’d add environmental interests, of course, except Katter would have all environmentalists buried at sea if he could.

But then there was his anti-gay marriage ad, which reminded me that he was still a Katter, the same one who said (back when he was a minister in Bjelke-Petersen’s government) that he’d walk backwards to Bourke if there were any gays or lesbians at all in his former electorate of Charters Towers, and added that condoms were despicable things that would do nothing to help prevent the spread of AIDS, but would encourage the community to have sex with gay abandon.… Read more..

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Gina buys the chook run

Australian Politics, Media / February 2, 2012 / 4 minutes of reading

In the early part of his political career, former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen – aka The Hillbilly Dictator – had a jaundiced attitude to the pesky officers of the press corps. “The greatest thing that could happen to the state and the nation is when we get rid of all the media,” he said. “Then we could live in peace and tranquility and no one would know anything.”

No one, maybe not even Joh, knew exactly what he meant by that – you could say that about a lot of his most famous public utterances, actually – but it’s widely suspected that he was serious at the time.

It was Joh’s press secretary, Allen Callaghan, who convinced him that the press, if manipulated effectively, could be used as a political weapon. And Joh, as reactionary a figure as any to have appeared on the Australian political landscape, proved he could adapt. Soon, he would refer to the media as his “chooks”: “I have to feed them every afternoon,” he said.

“Feeding the chooks” has long since entered Australia’s journalistic lexicon to describe the relationship between politicians and their interlocuters. But what if you simply bought the chook run?

Bjelke-Petersen’s good friend, the Western Australian iron ore baron Lang Hancock (who also donated large sums of money to Joh’s political campaigns) understood this.… Read more..

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