The National Party of Australia, also known as The Nationals or The Nats, is a centre-right Australian political party. Traditionally representing graziers, farmers, and regional voters generally, it began as the Australian Country Party in 1920 at a federal level.
Sir Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, known as Joh Bjelke-Petersen or simply Sir Joh, was a conservative Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, during which time the state underwent considerable economic development. He has become one of the most well-known and controversial figures of 20th-century Australian politics because of his uncompromising conservatism, political longevity, and the institutional corruption of his government.
The Joh for Canberra campaign, initially known as the Joh for PM campaign, was an attempt by Queensland National Party premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen to become Prime Minister of Australia. The campaign was announced in January 1987 and drew substantial support from Queensland businessmen and some conservative politicians. The campaign caused a split in the federal Coalition. It did not attract widespread support and collapsed in June 1987. The Australian Labor Party, led by Bob Hawke, went on to win the 1987 federal election with by an increased majority, gaining its highest-ever number of seats. Bjelke-Petersen came under increasing scrutiny as the Fitzgerald Inquiry gained traction, and was forced out of politics altogether in December 1987.
Robert Edward Borbidge is a former Australian politician who served as the 35th Premier of Queensland from 1996 to 1998. He was the leader of the Queensland branch of the National Party, and was the last member of that party to serve as premier. His term as premier was contemporaneous with the rise of the One Nation Party of Pauline Hanson, which would see him lose office within two years.
The Liberal–National Coalition, commonly known simply as the Coalition or the LNP, is an alliance of centre-right political parties that forms one of the two major groupings in Australian federal politics. The two partners in the Coalition are the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia. Its main opponent is the Australian Labor Party (ALP); the two forces are often regarded as operating in a two-party system. The Coalition was last in government from 2013 to 2022. The group is led by Peter Dutton, who succeeded Scott Morrison after the 2022 federal election.
The Bjelkemander was the term given to a system of malapportionment in the Australian state of Queensland in the 1970s and 1980s. Under the system, electorates were allocated to zones such as rural or metropolitan and electoral boundaries drawn so that rural electorates had about half as many voters each as metropolitan ones. The Country Party, a rural-based party led by Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was able to govern uninhibited during this period due to the 'Bjelkemander' and the absence of an upper house of Parliament.
Theo Russell Cooper is a former Australian National Party politician. He was Premier of Queensland for a period of 73 days, from 25 September 1989 to 7 December 1989. His loss at the state election of 1989 ended 32 years of continuous National Party rule over Queensland.
The Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP) is a major political party in Queensland, Australia. It was formed in 2008 by a merger of the Queensland divisions of the Liberal Party and the National Party. At a federal level and in most other states, the two parties remain distinct and often operate as a Coalition. The LNP is a division of the Liberal Party of Australia, and an affiliate of the National Party of Australia.
The 1989 Queensland state election was held in the Australian state of Queensland on 2 December 1989 to elect the 89 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. This was the first election following the downfall of seven-term premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen at the end of 1987.
The 1987 Australian federal election was held in Australia on 11 July 1987, following the granting of a double dissolution on 5 June by the Governor-General Sir Ninian Stephen. Consequently, all 148 seats in the House of Representatives as well as all 76 seats in the Senate were up for election. The incumbent Australian Labor Party, led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, defeated the opposition Liberal Party of Australia, led by John Howard and the National Party of Australia led by Ian Sinclair. This was the first, and to date only, time the Labor Party won a third consecutive election.
Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 1 November 1986 to elect the 89 members of the state's Legislative Assembly. It followed a redistribution which increased the number of seats in the Assembly from 82 to 89.
Elections were held in the Australian state of Queensland on 12 November 1977 to elect the 82 members of the state's Legislative Assembly.
Donald Frederick Lane was a Minister of Transport in the Bjelke-Petersen state of Queensland's coalition government. A former policeman in the Special Branch, in 1971 he was elected as the Liberal member for Merthyr, an electorate which included the Fortitude Valley where a lot of the then illegal brothels and casinos were located. During his time with the Police, he had gotten to know Jack Herbert the Chief Organiser of The Joke, and the "Rat Pack" of Terry Lewis, Tony Murphy and Glenn Hallahan well. Following the 1983 Queensland state election he switched to the National Party, providing it with an outright majority, and was rewarded with a ministry. He went on to lead the National Party’s submission to the Electoral Commission to more effectively gerrymander and malapportion seats to increase National Party control. It was revealed in the Fitzgerald Inquiry, that Lane had significant unexplained income, and was alleged by Jack Herbert to have taken bribes. Lane didn’t admit to taking bribes, instead he admitted to abusing Ministerial expenses and claimed a lot of other Ministers had done the same. In the end Lane and three other Bjelke-Petersen ministers were tried in the District Court and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment for falsifying their expense accounts.
Clayfield is an electoral division of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland. It is centred on the inner northern suburb of Clayfield in the state capital of Brisbane.
Terrence Anthony White is an Australian pharmacist, businessman, and former politician. White achieved notoriety when, as Queensland state leader of the Liberal Party he terminated the longstanding coalition agreement between the Liberal Party and the National Party of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In the ensuing election, the Liberals were badly defeated, and White was replaced as party leader. After leaving politics, he established Terry White Chemmart, a nationwide pharmacy franchise, and became a widely respected businessman.
The ginger group, in Queensland politics was a group of Liberal Party MLAs during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, who despite nominally being a part of the government, were opposed to some of the policies of their senior coalition partner, the National Party. Initially a small informal grouping within the Liberal Party, the group came to wield greater and greater power within the Liberal partyroom, culminating in Terry White's successful leadership challenge in 1983, and the party's subsequent defeat and loss of influence at the 1983 election.
John Angus Mackenzie Innes was a Queensland politician and leader of the state Liberal Party.
Guelfi Paul Scassola was an Australian politician. He was a Liberal Party member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland from 1977 until 1983, representing the electorate of Mount Gravatt.
The National Party of Australia – Queensland (NPA-Q), commonly known as Queensland Nationals, or the National Party of Queensland, was the Queensland-state branch of the National Party of Australia (NPA) until 2008. Prior to 1974, it was known as the Country Party. The party was disestablished in 2008.
The Queensland Liberal Party, officially known as the Liberal Party of Australia (Queensland Division), was the Queensland division of the Liberal Party of Australia until 2008.
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