The spectre of Bjelke-Petersen still looms over Queensland

Aunty Sandra King, an elder of the Yagara, Quandamooka and Bundjalung peoples, stopped in her tracks at a rally against plans for an Olympic stadium in Brisbane’s Victoria Park when she saw a placard reading “I Preferred Joh”. For those who lived through Sir Joh Bjelke‑Petersen’s premiership, comparisons are heavy with history: King said the LNP’s moves to remove Indigenous people and programs felt like “going back to Joh”, adding that “No, Joh was not better”.

Indigenous barrister Joshua Creamer has described a quiet purge he heard called “project invisibility”, pointing to the defunding of Murri Watch and plans to contest native title claims. The academic Julianne Schultz recalled how First Nations people were an early target of the Bjelke‑Petersen government and warned that race was “the thin end of the wedge”.

Many recent policy shifts rest on a simple calculation that issues such as Indigenous affairs are marginal for suburban and regional voters, whose immediate concerns are cost of living and crime.

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