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Rise to power
In 1957, following a split in the Labor Party, the Country Party under Nicklin
came to power, with the Liberal Party as a junior coalition partner. In the same
year, Bjelke-Petersen married Florence Gilmour, who was later to become a
significant political figure in her own right. Bjelke-Petersen became one of
Nicklin's cabinet ministers in 1963 and held office until 1968; Nicklin retired
in January of that year. Jack Pizzey, Nicklin's successor both as Premier and as
Country Party leader, died unexpectedly within seven months of assuming office.
In the election for leadership of the Country Party, Bjelke-Petersen won. He
became Premier on 8 August 1968. (During the interval between Pizzey's death and
Bjelke-Petersen's accession, the premiership was held by the Liberals' leader,
Sir Gordon Chalk.) At this stage Bjelke-Petersen was still not very well known
even to most Queenslanders, let alone outside the State.
Bjelke-Petersen's administration was kept in power by an electoral
malapportionment where rural votes were given greater power than those in city
areas. This system was originally introduced by the Labor Party in 1949 as an
overt gerrymander. Under Nicklin the bias in favour of rural constituencies was
maintained. In 1972 Sir Joh strengthened the system to favour his own party,
which led to his opponents referring to it as the "Bjelke-mander". The lack of a
state upper house (since its abolition in 1922) allowed executive decisions to
be swiftly implemented.
With Labor weak and chronically divided in Queensland throughout the 1960s and
1970s, Bjelke-Petersen won a series of election victories, often at the expense
of his Liberal coalition partners as much as Labor. Typically the Country Party
would gain fewer votes than either Labor or Liberal, but those votes would be
spread out across the many rural electorates, giving the Country Party more
seats than the Liberals and thus making them the senior coalition partner.
Together they had more seats in Parliament than Labor, allowing Bjelke-Petersen
to govern as Premier of a State in which his party received only 20% of the
votes (using the figures for the 1972 election).
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