Qld Premier Joh - a rabid right wing anti-intellectual!

That's one of the milder descriptions of him; several people who were on the receiving end of his political thuggery found the only way they and their families could stay safe from his apparatus was the move to NSW.

But there were also telling critiques noted for their subtlety.

In May 1972 the main Brisbane newspaper, the Courier Mail, became the only capital city newspaper I know of to print a letter to the editor on its front page. To get the full benefit you need to know that Bjelke Petersen, while Premier, was also a peanut farmer with a pilot's licence.

The letter took the editor to task over the punctuation contained in a story on Joh a couple of days earlier, in which Joh was described as "that well known flying peanut farmer comma Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen", when everyone knew the sentence should have read "that well known flying peanut comma farmer Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen."

Another critique was presented when the ABC broadcast a particular edition of The Gillies Report, a satirical view of current political events compiled by Max Gillies, a notable comic and aired on Monday nights. The broadcast in question did a wonderful hatchet job on Joh and, the next day, the press corps all lined up and asked Joh what he'd thought of The Gillies Report. Poor Joh thought it was a formal report to the govt and he hadn't worked through it so he blustered that he'd look into it at his earliest opportunity. The press corps couldn't believe their luck and kept pestering him; he was known for his dismissive attitude towards the press and he described press conferences as "feeding the chooks."

It took him a while to recover the necessary gravitas.

But then, at the time, I was a southerner and didn't count as far as those from "the deep north" were concerned. Now, where was that copy of "It's a long way to Cunnamulla"?

Cheers, Rowan