Joh for PM

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 win the office of Prime Minister of Australia. The campaign was announced in January 1987 and drew substantial support from Queensland businessmen and some conservative politicians. The campaign succeeded in causing a split in the federal Coalition. It did not attract widespread support and collapsed in June 1987. The Australian Labor Party under Bob Hawke went on to win by an increased majority in the 1987 federal election, 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.

Bjelke-Petersen became Premier of Queensland in 1968. Although he came close to being ousted from office in 1970, he went on to become the longest-serving premier in Queensland history, and was returned to office convincingly in several elections in the early 1980s. In 1983 and 1984, he had communicated his interest in challenging what he saw as a dangerous push towards socialism within the Hawke Labor Government.

Labor won power at the federal level under Bob Hawke at the 1983 election. Bjelke-Petersen and Queensland National Party president Sir Robert Sparkes spearheaded a conservative backlash against Hawke based in Queensland. The aim of this conservative movement was to "dismantle Labor's 'socialist' legislation, including Medicare, support Queensland-style free enterprise and introduce a flat-tax system". After the state Liberal Party walked out of the Coalition a few months before the 1983 Queensland state election (the National Party was traditionally the senior partner in the non-Labor Coalition in Queensland), Bjelke-Petersen played up fears of a Labor-Liberal coalition and led the Nationals to 41 seats in the 82-seat Legislative Assembly of Queensland—one short of a majority. He then persuaded two Liberals to cross the floor and join the Nationals, allowing them to govern in their own right for the first time. At the next election in 1986, the Nationals won an outright majority for the only time, winning a record 55% of the seats in Queensland parliament.

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