Bjelke-Petersen, Joh(annes) (1911–2005)

Australian right-wing politician, leader of the Queensland National Party (QNP) and premier of Queensland 1968–87.

Bjelke-Petersen was born in New Zealand, the son of a Danish Lutheran minister. He worked as a peanut farmer before entering the Queensland parliament in 1947. His Queensland state chauvinism and extremely conservative policies, such as lack of support for Aboriginal land rights or for conservation issues and attacks on the trade-union movement, made him a controversial figure outside as well as within Queensland, and he was accused more than once of electoral gerrymandering. In 1987 he broke the coalition of the QNP with the Australian Liberal Party to run for prime minister, but his action, by splitting the opposition, merely strengthened the hand of the Labor prime minister Bob Hawke. Amid reports of corruption in his government, Bjelke-Petersen was forced to resign the premiership in 1987.

His wife, Florence, was a senator 1981–92.