Joh For Canberra - Media

Media

The Murdoch papers, particularly The Australian, offered enthusiastic early support for the "Joh for Canberra" and "Joh for PM" campaigns. The Australian was edited by the pro Bjelke-Petersen editor Lee Hollings and pursed a vigorous platform of advocacy for Bjelke-Petersen's campaign, providing it with "much-needed momentum" in early January 1987. The stance taken by Murdoch, combined with sympathetic coverage in the Courier Mail, meant that the campaign received a great deal of positive media attention. Some commentators have argued that The Australian did much to contribute to the defeat of the conservatives in the 1987 federal election. Ian McPhee has argued that the promotion of the "Joh for Canberra" and "Joh for PM" campaigns in The Australian was a case of the paper going "out of its way to fan the flames of disunity," contributing to the Hawke government's eventual victory. Local dissent against the Bjelke-Petersen media narrative came from smaller publications. The University of Queensland's Semper Floreat and the independent magazine The Cane Toad Times provided authentic voices of Queensland opposition to Joh Bjelke-Petersen's push for Canberra. The Cane Toad Times only addressed the campaign in reference to the Fitzgerald Inquiry that ousted Bjelke-Petersen in late 1987, stating that issues like the "Joh for Canberra" campaign, similarly to the Sprngboks tour of 1971 and the industrial disputes of 1984, had served to "keep the spotlight off the only real problem the National Party government had in Queensland corruption". Semper Floreat was a persistent critic of the "Joh for Canberra" campaign. In its regular column "Letters from Kingaroy", the publication repeatedly mocked Bjelke-Petersen and his attempt to be elected to federal office. What both Semper Floreat and The Cane Toad Times shared was a view of Bjelke-Petersen as a repressive and autocratic figure trying to replicate a tradition of misgovernment on the federal stage. The Cane Toad Times satirically referred to Queensland as a "new Reich," while Semper claimed that "a lot of Queensland journalists have a sense of futility because of the immense control Joh Bjelke-Petersen holds in this state?. In Brisbane, the media had a degree of diversity that was largely absent from the rest of the state. Brisbane was also the area of Queensland where Bjelke-Petersen enjoyed the least amount of success. Outside the cosmopolitan southeast of Queensland, Bjelke-Petersen and the Nationals "benefited from a less diverse and competitive mass media," which helped to ensure their continuing electoral success.