Queensland has historically been noted noted as no country for women, old or young. Especially under former Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Known as the “Bible-bashing bastard” he constantly revealed the un-Christian facets of vindictiveness and theft. He trumpeted his Christian faith with much self-proclaimed piety and zeal, opposed Aboriginal self determination, banned street marching, constantly stated a woman’s place was in the home and her natural condition that of pregnancy, told the visiting Archbishop of Canterbury to go home, and supported the idea that Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu was “a witchdoctor”.
He ruled for almost twenty years over a State rife with corruption and was finally, himself, charged in 1990 for corruption and perjury.
When it came, his end was swift, through the apocalypse of the Fitzgerald Inquiry as the four horsemen of corruption, cronyism, media criticism and electoral contempt flailed his shattered administration, and he left office petulant and penurious.
Joh saw sex discrimination as further proof that the rest of Australia had turned socialist yet, while he was in power, Quentin Bryce became the first woman appointed to Queensland University’s law faculty (1965), established the Women’s Information Service in Brisbane (1984) was appointed Queensland director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1987) and became the sex discrimination commissioner on the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (1989)
Congratulations to Bryce, Australia’s first female governor-general.
