’Joh made me so proud’
Lady Flo on life with the former premier
AS SHE approaches her 98th birthday Florence Isabel Bjelke-Petersen has two wishes.
She would like to receive a letter from the Queen when she turns 100.
And she would like to see her husband’s reputation restored.
She was married to Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland’s longest-serving premier and knight of the realm, a man known by many epithets including the Hillbilly Dictator, the Mulga Messiah, the Flying Peanut and a biblebashing bastard.
Sir Joh left office 30 years ago today.
Lady Flo believes he was an honest man unfairly and ruthlessly dumped by his own party after 40 years of service after becoming entangled in political corruption scandals not of his making.
“He always knew politics was a funny business,” she said. “And he was not very happy at the way it all ended.
“I often ask myself: Why did they get rid of him?
“Queensland was doing very well. It seemed strange to me.”
Lady Flo said she was happy at a retirement village in Kingaroy, with daily visits by her daughters Ruth and Helen or her son John.
“When you get to the end of your life you need to have a good, firm resting place,” she said.
“I don’t know whether I’ll make 100. God is the only one who knows that now.
“I don’t know what his plans are for me, but I’d like to think I can.
“I want to get a letter from the Queen. Whether I will or not, who knows?”
Florence Gilmour was a city girl living in New Farm and secretary of the Commissioner for Main Roads when she met Joh.
He was an alderman on the Kingaroy council who arrived one day with a delegation seeking road funding.
She was a skilled shorthand note taker who took a record of the meeting.
“I thought he was really nice. He was a pretty clever fellow. We got along pretty well.”
She said marrying Joh and moving to Kingaroy was quite a shock.
“I had to learn how to milk a cow. When the children grew up it was a task for them. I got out of it then.”
Lady Flo said friends and strangers still contacted her to tell of little kindnesses Joh had done for them. This belied his reputation as an uncompromising authoritarian who was intolerant of contrary opinions.
“I was certainly very happy to be married to him and he did a great job as premier of Queensland. I was proud to be his wife.
“People still come to me and tell me how good it was when Joh ran the state. There will never be anyone like Joh. You would have to be pretty brilliant to beat him.”
Lady Flo believes her husband reached his political zenith in the early 1980s.
“The best thing he did was to get the National Party to run on its own,” she said.
After splitting with the Liberals, the Joh’s Nationals won the 1983 election in their own right thanks to the defection from the Liberal Party of Don Lane and Brian Austin.
The Liberal Party never forgave them – nor Joh.
The period also signalled the rise of the so-called white shoe brigade led by developers such as Christopher Skase who sought favours from the government.