A sign stopped Aunty Sandra King in her tracks. The elder of the Yagara, Quandamooka and Bundjalung people, now in her 70s, spoke at a protest last month against plans to build an Olympic stadium in the heart of Brisbane\u2019s Victoria Park.<\/p>\n
In the crowd a man held aloft a homemade placard with the words \u201cI Preferred Joh\u201d.<\/p>\n
In Queensland<\/a>, regressive government decisions are often compared to the repressive decades led by the \u201chillbilly dictator\u201d, the former premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.<\/p>\n For those who lived through those years, like Aunty Sandra, such comparisons are never made lightly.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first I got a bit shocked by seeing [the sign],\u201d she told the rally.<\/p>\n But she says the LNP\u2019s unapologetic moves to remove Indigenous people and programs from government are a throwback to the sorts of days many thought had come and gone.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is going back to Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who we did not like,\u201d she says. \u201cWho was just against us.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, Joh was not better, I can say. None of them, no Liberal party\u2019s better for us.\u201d<\/p>\n This month the prominent Indigenous barrister Joshua Creamer told ABC Radio he had heard the government\u2019s quiet purge of First Nations people, policies and programs described by a public servant as \u201cproject invisibility\u201d. This has included the defunding of programs like Murri Watch<\/a> \u2013 which provides services to Indigenous children in watch houses \u2013 as well as plans to contest all native title claims<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an organised strategy and that is to ultimately eliminate, remove, reduce the Indigenous affairs, Indigenous initiatives, Indigenous voices,\u201d Creamer said.<\/p>\n A simple calculation<\/p>\n In her 2008 essay, Disruptive Influences, the academic and author Julianne Schultz writes about a cohort of Queenslanders, shaped by tumultuous times, who had emerged at the forefront of national public life. They were \u201ca product of a time and place that was uniquely volatile\u201d.<\/p>\n Almost two decades on, many of those now in positions of influence are from subsequent generations. There are fewer institutional memories; fewer voices to warn about the slippery slope.<\/p>\n Schultz says First Nations people were an early target of the Bjelke-Petersen government.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the early starting point was around race, about Aboriginal rights,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s always been, and always will be, the thin end of the wedge.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the government\u2019s shifts that have most concerned civil libertarians rely on a simple calculation: that the issues are marginal for most suburban and regional voters, whose concerns are mostly the cost of living, and crime.<\/p>\n This sort of calculation was central to the government\u2019s \u201cadult time\u201d crime laws, introduced after a populist election campaign that focused on juvenile crime and included accusations of \u201cradicalised dog whistling\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n David Crisafulli has to cast back almost 70 years for a palatable political hero in \u2018honest\u2019 Frank Nicklin. Photograph: Lukas Coch\/AAP<\/p>\n The same calculation underscores banning of puberty blockers for transgender healthcare in public hospitals, or \u201chate speech\u201d laws that have banned expressions linked to pro-Palestine protests.<\/p>\n Several groups compared arrests under those laws to police-led suppression of protests under the Bjelke-Petersen government, particularly its 1977 ban on all protest marches<\/a> and declaration of a state of emergency during a tour of the state by an all-white rugby team from apartheid South Africa.<\/p>\n Others have pointed out that even Bjelke-Petersen didn\u2019t go so far as to ban expressions where the meaning is contested.<\/p>\n The government has exempted its planned Olympics venues from 15 state laws, including the heritage and planning acts, drawing comparisons with Bjelke-Petersen\u2019s enabling act for the 1988 World Expo which compulsorily acquired 40 hectares of inner-city riverfront land.<\/p>\n Cultural institutions like the state library pulped books<\/a> in the 1980s. Last year, apparently on political orders, the library stripped author Karen Wyld of her $15,000 black&write! fellowship<\/a>, less than five hours before it was to have been awarded to her, over comments about the conflict in Gaza.<\/p>\n Controversial political legacies<\/p>\n The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli<\/a>, has to cast back almost 70 years for a palatable political hero. Crisafulli has repeatedly \u2013 as recently as last week \u2013 compared himself to \u201chonest\u201d Frank Nicklin, who became premier in 1957 after a long period in opposition.<\/p>\n Since Nicklin, the other only conservative leaders to win general elections in Queensland are Bjelke-Petersen and Campbell Newman. And both have controversial political legacies.<\/p>\n Privately at least one senior Liberal describes Bjelke-Petersen as the \u201cbest premier Queensland ever had\u201d, but such a comment is rarely made publicly.<\/p>\n In recent years, Crisafulli has commented several times about how long it had been since a Queensland government had abolished a tax, but omitted any mention of the premier (Bjelke-Petersen) who scrapped death duties in the 1970s.<\/p>\n Campbell Newman speaks at the Save Victoria Park rally in May with the \u2018I Preferred Joh\u2019 placard in the background. Photograph: Joe Hinchliffe\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Three weeks ago, in a video posted to YouTube, the mining magnate Gina Rinehart told the same story. But Rinehart \u2013 a key financial backer of the insurgent rightwing populist One Nation<\/a> \u2013 was clear and unashamed in her praise of Bjelke-Petersen\u2019s government.<\/p>\n