Joh Bjelke-Petersen - Early Life

Early Life

Bjelke-Petersen was born in Dannevirke in the southern Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand, and lived in Waipukurau, a small town in Hawke's Bay. Bjelke-Petersen's parents were both Danish immigrants, and his father, Carl (known to the family as George), was a Lutheran pastor. In 1913 the family moved to Australia, establishing a farm, "Bethany", near Kingaroy in south-eastern Queensland.

The young Bjelke-Petrsen suffered from polio, leaving him with a lifelong limp. The family was of modest means, and Carl Bjelke-Petersen was frequently in poor health. Bjelke-Petersen finished formal schooling at age 14 to work with his mother on the farm, though he later enrolled in correspondence school and later undertook a University of Queensland extension course on the "Art of Writing". He taught Sunday School, delivered sermons regularly in nearby towns and joined the Kingaroy debating society. In 1933, Bjelke-Petersen began work land-clearing and peanut farming on the family's newly-acquired second property. His efforts eventually allowed him to begin work as a contract land-clearer and to acquire further capital which he invested in farm equipment and natural resource exploration. He developed a technique for quickly clearing scrub by connecting a heavy anchor chain between two bulldozers. By the time he was 30, he was a prosperous farmer and businessman. Obtaining a pilot's licence early in his adult life, Bjelke-Petersen also started aerial spraying and grass seeding to further speed up pasture development in Queensland.

After failing in a 1944 plebiscite against the sitting member to gain Country Party endorsement in the state seat of Nanango, Bjelke-Petersen was elected in 1946 to the Kingaroy Shire Council, where he developed a profile in the Country Party. With the support of local federal member and shire council chairman Sir Charles Adermann and Sir Frank Nicklin, he gained Country Party endorsement for Nanango and was elected a year later at age 36, going on to give regular radio talks and becoming secretary of the local Nationals branch. (The seat of Nanango was abolished in 1950 and from 1950 to 1987 he was member for Barambah). The Australian Labor Party (ALP) had held power in Queensland since 1932 and Bjelke-Petersen spent eleven years as an Opposition member.