REMEMBER WHEN

POLITICAL strife gripped Queensland in 1989, as the aftermath of the Fitzgerald Inquiry continued to wreak havoc on the ruling National Party government.

One person caught in the middle was journalist Janine Widgery, a state-based reporter for Melbourne newspaper The Truth.

Widgery was reportedly looking into political links to an organised drug syndicate when she was attacked and her office ransacked.

After attending a police party in Nerang, Widgery was stabbed and beaten unconscious when she returned to her Runaway Bay home.

During the confrontation she successfully disabled her attacker, a man in his 30s, by kicking him between the legs and grabbing a .22 caliber rifle from under her bed.

The man allegedly said before leaving the house “you should learn to keep your mouth shut”.

Meanwhile, business tycoon Alan Bond, who had just taken part in the successful opening of the Gold Coast’s first private tertiary institute, Bond University, found himself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The Bulletin reported that Bond vowed to fight the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal after it decided he was unfit to hold a broadcasting license.

The businessman, who was then the owner of the Nine Network, was then forced to take his fight to the Federal Court to try and save his media holdings.

“I will pursue every avenue open to me to clear my name,” he said in a statement.