The Queensland government this week announced an extraordinary set of expanded police search powers, designed to crack down on environmental protesters. The centre of Brisbane has seen a series of demonstrations led by climate change activists Extinction Rebellion in recent months, and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk argued that their “sinister” tactics and disruption of traffic warranted tougher laws.
But the basis for Palaszczuk’s expansion of police power appears questionable. The premier cited advice from police commissioner Katarina Carroll, alleging that protesters were using locking devices, and devices loaded with fragments of glass to stop them being removed. Yet there is no evidence of climate protesters using such devices.
Politicians’ rhetoric around the issue has reminded some of a dark chapter of Queensland’s past.
Queensland’s authoritarian history
“Queensland has a long history of authoritarian governments,” Michael Cope, president of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties, told Crikey. That history hasn’t escaped Palaszczuk’s political opponents, who have drawn parallels between the new laws, and the reign of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the state’s long-serving National Party premier.
Greens MP Michael Berkman said Palaszczuk’s changes risked making Queensland “the kind of draconian police state that Joh would be proud of”.
The Bjelke-Petersen era, which lasted from 1968 to 1987, was infamous for vast institutional corruption; staunch social conservatism; systemic gerrymandering; and above all, a hostility toward protest and civil liberties.
Cope, whose organisation was founded following a series of protests against the Vietnam War a year before Bjelke-Petersen came to power, told Crikey that those years were the toughest in his organisation’s history.
“It was an era in which the special branch was hassling people, and photographing people at demonstrations who were doing nothing other than being at a demonstration, ” Cope said. “There was widespread corruption, no source of remedy for abuse of police powers, and regular police bashings — none of which was constrained because Bjelke-Petersen had the police on his side.”
Perhaps the most insidious feature of Sir Joh’s reign was his weaponisation of the police. The special branch, a secretive unit of the police created in the 1940s to crack down on “subversives” (usually communists), spied on and harassed protesters, and in some instances infiltrated groups to act as provocateurs.
In 1989, when the Fitzgerald inquiry into corruption finally brought down Bjelke-Petersen, the special branch shredded all its files rather than face scrutiny.
In 1971, when the Springboks, South Africa’s rugby union team, held a tour that became a flashpoint for anti-Apartheid protest across the country, Bjelke-Petersen declared a state of emergency. For 30 days, hundreds of police officers were bussed into Brisbane from rural Queensland and given unfettered power. Years later, it was revealed that Bjelke-Petersen had cut a secret deal with police, promising officers they wouldn’t be punished for any action they took in suppressing the protests. A pay rise was also thrown in to sweeten the deal.
Voices of dissent against Bjelke-Petersen’s authoritarian turn were ignored and purged. In 1976, police conducted a large-scale military raid at a hippie commune in far-north Queensland, burning the property down. The incident drove a further wedge between Bjelke-Petersen and reformist police commissioner Ray Whitrod. After a chilling campaign of harassment and intimidation, Whitrod — who warned Queensland was on the road to becoming a police state — was turfed out.
His replacement, a relatively unknown cop called Terry Lewis would later become the face of corruption in the “moonlight state”, and spent over a decade in prison.
But Joh kept on winning, and as dissentients were eliminated, his repressive tendencies sharpened. In 1978, the premier announced that “the days of street marches are over”, and told protesters not to bother applying for a permit. That pronouncement led to more protests, in which 2000 people were arrested.
The spirit of the Hillbilly Dictator
Extinction Rebellion’s Brisbane protests — which deliberately set out to provoke — have caused calls for the kind of tough crackdown reminiscent of the Bjelke-Petersen era. Pauline Hanson called for police to target protesters with cattle prods. Liberal National Party opposition leader Deb Frecklington has referred to protesters as “ratbags” and “muppets”, and claimed they could be in breach of anti-terrorism laws if they staged a Hong Kong-style airport protest.
Cope says that while Queensland isn’t necessarily travelling back in time to the Bjelke-Petersen era, he warns that as pressure ratchets up over the protests, politicians may forget the worst moments of the state’s past.
“People forget what Queensland was like in the ’70s and ’80s — it wasn’t quite the Soviet Union, but we had a pretty authoritarian government. What we do know from that time is that the police will seize on any opportunity to increase their powers, and turn a little bit of smoke into a fire”.
What do you make of the new anti-protest laws? Send your comments to boss@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name.
This Palaszczuk government has just about reached it’s use-by-date – preparing the way for an even worse “Deb’s Freckle” government ……. then we’ll see a rerun of Bjelke-Petersen-Murdoch (on PR) government.
Meddling in the justice system, IR and environmental degradation for starters – all, no doubt, with a “Murdoch Mandate”.
That would be “Ted” Lewis, later Sir Ted Lewis – AKA “top level” Ted as he was known – not Terry.
You don’t mean “Top Level” Ted Lyons?
Terry Lewis was hand-picked – from relative obscurity – by the dictatorial Bjelke-Petersen to “manage” (corrupt) the police as his personal attack dogs, among other things.
Screw Cabinet or the likes of Gunn.
Lyons was one of Joh’s closest “advisors” (along with ‘Beryl the Pilot’????) ….. when ‘God wasn’t telling him he was so right doing what he was – and that those that opposed him were Satan’s little helpers’?
Yeah – you’re right. Here’s some discussion on line:
http://www.stevebishop.net/chapter-3-top-level-trouble.html
Qld wasn’t the only state with a police special branch. The notorious Victorian one took years of protests to be scrapped.
Qld is a fine example of why we need upper houses despite frequent justifiable claims of sinecures of sloth and unrepresentative swill. It’s also the most regionalised with more voters outside the capital with multiple sources bucolic of reactionary power. At least the extraordinary gerrymander is much reduced if not actually gone.
Come on Mark I sniff a whiff of reform in your post, allow me to prod you further !
If a jobs worth doing its worth doing well !
Grasp the nettle weed firmly in both hands and pull it out, it might sting a bit but look at the good you would do!!
Same with the Constitution.
Get rid of the States (except in name only for the purposes of sporting contests for example) and the unrepresentative swill in their upper houses ( no need to in Queensland), local government would be merged within regions to form regional councils eg. New England.
We could then concentrate our energies on reforming the Federal Government, with a Federal ICAC with statutory powers a prerequisite.
Probably the time for such a radical move would when we finally become a Republic. The dysfunction within our political system is permeating all levels of society with unnecessary consequences and needs to addressed. With notable examples through the duplication and buck passing of responsibilities in our Federal system—- to just keep kicking the can down the road has to stop !
Surely Mark, we can’t keep supporting so many snouts in our public troughs ad infinitum and expect good outcomes ?
Some food for thought !
Dutton was a Qld copper. All that needs to be said about the racist attitude that prevailed and still does.
ummm “… (Lewis) would later become the face of corruption in the “moonlight state”,and SPEND over a decade in prison. But Joh kept on winning, and as DISSIDENTS were eliminated, his repressive tendencies sharpened” though it could be argued that choosing to remain in Johburg was proof of “dissentients”.