Joh for Canberra
The Australian Labor Party, led by Bob Hawke, went on to win the 1987 federal election with an increased majority, gaining its highest-ever number of seats.
[3] The aim of movement was to "dismantle Labor's 'socialist' legislation, including Medicare, to support Queensland-style free enterprise and to introduce a flat-tax system".
[5] The idea of Bjelke-Petersen becoming prime minister was first explicitly discussed with him by Gold Coast businessmen Brian Ray and Mike Gore, in autumn 1986, not long after his comprehensive state election victory.
[7] The base of the "Joh for Canberra" campaign was a group of Queensland businessmen, nicknamed the "white shoe brigade", who had enjoyed substantial patronage from the Bjelke-Petersen government.
[10] That apparent momentum gave Bjelke-Petersen a feeling of invulnerability, and the mistaken belief that the dynamics of Queensland politics could be replicated at a federal level.
[11] Bjelke-Petersen's candidacy rested on his promotion of a 25% flat tax rate for all Australians, irrespective of income, a proposal that drew the support of Queensland businessmen and those on the right of politics.
[15] Ironically, before Bjelke-Petersen began his ill-fated run for the office of prime minister, Bob Hawke and Labor stood a very serious chance of losing government, deflated by the ill-fated attempt to introduce the unpopular Australia Card, the failed "tax summit", designed to gain support for federal treasurer Paul Keating's proposed consumption tax, and the declining terms of trade.
[19] Melbourne's Arena magazine described Bjelke-Petersen as a "populist leader... without institutional backing", who would inevitably be defeated by the established federal parties of Labor, the Nationals and the Liberals.
Key Liberal Party figures, such as Andrew Peacock, also sympathised with Bjelke-Petersen's run for office, but failed to sever their ties with the federal Coalition.
Joseph Siracusa, who served as Bjelke-Petersen's national security advisor in the campaign, later claimed that Peacock and fellow Liberal powerbroker Ian McLachlan played "important behind the scenes roles in the affair".
[32] The formal notice approving Bjelke-Petersen's run for the prime ministership was passed by a Queensland National Party Central Council in February 1987.
[36] Although Howard was publicly critical of the "Joh for PM" campaign, it has been alleged that he was actually desperate to appease Bjelke-Petersen, at one point flying to Queensland to seek a compromise agreement.
The Cane Toad Times only dealt with the campaign in reference to the Fitzgerald Inquiry that ousted Bjelke-Petersen in late 1987, stating that issues like the "Joh for Canberra" campaign, as with the Bjelke-Petersen government's aggressive support of the Springboks rugby tour of 1971, as well as the industrial disputes of 1984, had served to "keep the spotlight off the only real problem the National Party government had in Queensland [which was] corruption".
What both Semper Floreat and The Cane Toad Times shared was a view of Bjelke-Petersen as a repressive and autocratic figure, trying to replicate a tradition of misgovernment on the federal stage.
Outside the cosmopolitan south-east of Queensland, he and the Nationals "benefited from a less diverse and competitive mass media", which helped to ensure their continuing electoral success.
In May 1987, the expectations of Bjelke-Petersen's campaign were revised downwards to promoting Senate candidates such as John Stone, who ran under the New Nationals banner, and the slogan "Joh for PM" was scrapped in favour of "Joh for Canberra",[43] When prime minister, Bob Hawke, called a double dissolution election on 27 May 1987, Bjelke-Petersen was in the United States, visiting Disneyland, and had not even nominated for a federal seat.
[31] Despite the media furore created by the campaign, Bjelke-Petersen's bid for federal government lacked a "solid organisational basis and significant nationwide support".
[16] The federal National Party suffered a net loss of two seats, failing to expand upon its traditional rural base and hampered by disunity within its ranks.
Many swinging voters outside of Queensland, alarmed at the prospect of Bjelke-Petersen holding the balance of power, opted to vote Labor in order to ensure that the Coalition would be defeated.
In an interview recorded in the aftermath of the election loss, Bjelke-Petersen insisted that he did not bear any of the blame for the result, and that the only thing he had to apologise for was withdrawing from the contest.
[47] Bjelke-Petersen was always unapologetic about his bid for federal leadership, repeatedly characterising it in his memoir as the "Joh Crusade", and insisting that he "did not want to be prime minister....
The charges moved steadily up the ranks of the National Party and soon came to implicate Bjelke-Petersen, who was accused of systemic corruption and, later, narrowly avoided a conviction for perjury.
Historian Raymond Evans has claimed that it was waged "somewhat like Napoleon's ill-fated march on Moscow" while Rae Wear has likened Bjelke-Petersen to Mao Zedong.
Wear has cited the "Joh for Canberra" campaign as an example of "the old-age immortality project, whereby narcissistic and self-made politicians defy death by erecting lasting monuments to themselves".
As premier, he cultivated his identification with the "ordinary, decent Queenslander and traded on small business and rural fears of rapid social change".
