Australian Biography - Flo Bjelke - Petersen

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Flo

Flo sync: I always said that I after I became a senator I hoped that they remembered me first for being a senator

Photo. Flo holds Pumpkin scone tea towel

Flo v/o: who just happened to make pumpkin scones.

Flo

Flo sync: I think you've got standards you should abide by them and live by them. And particularly if you've got Christian standards I believe that it's up to you as a Christian to abide by them and live by them.

Flo greets Tim Fischer

Audience applauds

Flo

Flo sync: And this lady Senator said to me "Florence, is it true that you're going to give up your seat for Joh?" "Oh no," I said "that's not true." "Oh," she said "I'm so glad, we all love you down here."

Photo. Flo
Super:
Flo Bjelke-Petersen
Born 1920
National Party Senator 1981-83

FX: Crowd cheering

Flo

Flo sync: I was born in Brisbane, in 1920, in New Farm. Our old family home is still there.

Photo. Flo as child

Flo v/o: It was a lovely time as I grew up, I had a carefree childhood and

Flo. Slow zoom in to CU

Flo sync: I would say one of the values that we were taught, of course, was obedience and I think of course no family is strong unless they've got love within the home and that was very evident in our home. I often think back to how my father so lovingly tucked me up in bed at night time. Now, you know, that's, until I was over twenty-one if you please. He'd come along, pull the net down, because we had mosquitos in Brisbane in those days and put the light out for me, and when I look back I think what a loving thing that was to do all those years.

Photo. Flo as child with mother and sister on beach

Flo v/o: But things weren't always very easy you know during those

Flo

Flo sync: early years, because in our growing up years we were in that first Depression that was there

Photo. Flo's father

Flo v/o: and my father's eyesight had failed and he left his work.

Flo

Flo sync: But I think he might have brought it on himself. He read the history of the French Revolution and I think that that might have made his eyesight suffer. [Laughs]

Photo. Flo and sister

Flo v/o: Well,l my mother and father made a very great sacrifice as far as I concerned

Flo. Slow zoom in to BCU

Flo sync: to send me to the girls grammar school, because they felt that that would help my education, and of course things didn't improve financially and by the time I'd done two years at the grammar school I could see it was quite a tight squeeze to keep paying the fees, not that they'd be anything like they are these days of course, but nevertheless relatively speaking it would have been difficult. And so I said to Mum "Oh look, Mum," I said "I think I'd better get a job." And she looked at me and she said, "Florence where do you think you're going to job, you're not trained for anything." "Oh" I said "I think I could be clerk in an office, perhaps one of dad's friends might be able to get me work." She said "No," she said "we'll just manage while you go to the commercial High School," and they had a special course at the commercial

Photo. Flo as young woman

Flo v/o: High School, PSCT they called it, Public Service Special Course it was,

Flo

Flo sync: and so I went to the state commercial high school for twelve months, and I really think that I struck my niche there, because I just loved commercial work. Shorthand, typing, bookkeeping and

Photo. Flo as young woman, sitting on rock on beach

Flo v/o: I ended up by working for the Commissioner for Main Roads and that was how I met Joh.

Flo

Flo sync: I was working in the Commissioner's office, he brought delegations and deputations in from the local authorities in this area, one or two of them both claim responsibility for the fact that they brought Joh in and that he met me there, and of course I got to know Joh and the first, when he plucked up enough courage to talk to me -- you see he'd been a bachelor for a long time, he was

Photo. Joh as young man with mother

Flo v/o: about forty when he got married. He was living next to his mother and

Flo

Flo sync: he sort of I think had decided perhaps that he wouldn't ever find anybody to get married to. His father, in his growing up years, had said to him "You know Joh, you be very careful who you marry," he said "you take your time, don't rush into it." And then finally his father got to the stage where he said to Joh "Look Joh, you know, I really think it would be good if you did get married," see, so I don't, Joh was between, you know, the devil and the deep blue sea as they say. So he saw me and he must have thought, you know, I looked alright and he might have thought I was efficient. I often say, well I hope he didn't marry me just because he thought he might get a good secretary. I like to think he married me for me.

Photo. Flo in sun hat

Interviewer o/s: How old were you when you met Joh?

Flo v/o: Oh, close on thirty.

Flo

Interviewer o/s: And had you had many boyfriends?

Flo sync: Oh no, I couldn't say I had. I had one, you know, one or two but not a lot, no.

Photo. Flo in hat

Interviewer o/s: Had he had girlfriends before he met you?

Flo v/o: He says he hadn't

Flo

Flo sync: and I take his word for that. He must have been too busy doing work I think. I think he had quite a few girls who would've liked to have been his girlfriends, put it like that, but he didn't sort of seem to accept the invitations there so I was just a bit lucky he saved. He saved and waited for me.

Interviewer o/s: And didn't it worry, did it worry you a bit about marrying someone who was a bachelor of forty who'd never had anything to do with girls? Did you think 'Gee what am I taking on here?'

Flo sync: Well it didn't

Photo. Flo and Joh

Flo v/o: cross my mind really.

Interviewer o/s: When you decided to marry Joh, did you appreciate just what a big change

Flo

it was going to make in your life do you think or were you just young and, well not so young, quite a mature bride...?

Flo sync: No that's right, yes, yes, that's right. But you see, when I think about it I thought, well he was a Member of Parliament and I thought well, I'd sort of go, being married to a Member of Parliament meant going with him and listening to him make speeches and things like that, but I soon found out it didn't take long before I started making speeches. Now, I had never really done this before I got married. I'd been secretary of church, of my, you know, young people's

Photo. Flo playing piano

Flo v/o: organisation in our Presbyterian Church and I'd always made sure I was secretary,

Flo

Flo sync: never a President or a Vice President in case I made, had to make a speech. Well you'd never believe it, but we were on our honeymoon in New Zealand when my first invitation came to open a fete. My heart sank, I thought "Oh no what'll I do," and I said to Joh "Look, what on earth will I do?" "Oh Florence," he said "you go." And I think he had the idea in his mind that if I went he mightn't have to, and then of course gradually you know, no sooner start one than people get the idea "Oh well now we've got a, he's got a wife now, we can ask her to come and do things." And of course, then I gradually got into the habit of going places and doing things because I was asked

Photo. Flo and woman at function

Flo v/o: to go and do them and so I did quite a lot of work for Joh in the electorate, particularly after he became a Minister

Flo

Flo sync: and he was busy going around Queensland and then even as Premier, so much so that when I used to go down to Bergen Shire, which is about, oh thirty miles away from here, I'd go down representing Joh. And then when Joh and I both went together, the Shire Chairman used to say 'the Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the Member for Barambah. Mrs. Bjelke-Petersen. So there you were you see and I kept on saying to Joh, you know, at election time "We have to work the electorate, we've got to work to make sure that you get back because if you don't get back as a Member you won't be the Premier." But nevertheless I mean he did have a wonderfully safe seat here.

Photo. Flo and Joh

Interviewer o/s: For quite a long time when Joh was Premier, with a relatively small part of the vote,

Flo

twenty-eight percent of the vote, he was able to have about thirty-eight percent of the seats in the house.

Photo. Flo and Joh

What did you feel when people used to call it a gerrymander?

Flo

Flo sync: Well I thought it was quite, it was really quite wrong, and I mean you just look at it, how could it be gerrymandered if eventually, without any redistribution at all, the Labor Party were able to win. Now where does that leave you?

Flo

Flo sync: It's done the whole time. I mean you're just trying to organise the people have a better chance to have a say. See, there aren't very many people out in the west, and if they were only going to be counted as one vote, one value they'd never have chance and the more that they talk about one vote, one value the bigger the electorates become.

Photo. Flo being sworn in as member of parliament

Interviewer o/s: Who made the decision that you should go to Canberra as Senator?

Flo

Flo sync: Well I made the final decision. I couldn't have gone to Canberra if I hadn't made the final decision to go, but I can still remember the time that the paper,

Photo. Flo and man standing under umbrellas

Flo sync: in the The Australian, Hugh Lunn wrote an article to the effect that

Flo

Flo sync: Joh was going to lead the Queensland and become a Senator, he was going to run, lead the ticket. And of course Joh laughed his head off and said "Oh that's, that's ridiculous, of course I'm not going to do that." And the next week out came the paper 'sorry, we've made a mistake. It's not Joh that's going to go for Canberra, it's Flo.' Now that's where the first, in my memory, the first thing that happened, because I can still remember I was over at the Carnival of Flowers in Toowoomba that day when this heading came out on The Australian paper and I nearly died of fright. I thought "Oh no." It was very nice feeling to be the Premier's wife. I didn't have any responsibility really, Joh had the responsibility. I just helped wherever I could and I went around the State and when things were bad for the women of west I went around there and I'd been around with my friend Lady Logan and we'd done tremendous amount of touring around Queensland meeting the women and knowing their problems. And lo and behold,

Photo. Flo at microphone

Flo v/o: here they were suggesting that I should go and be a Senator.

Flo

Flo sync: And as soon as Joh read it in the paper he said "What a wonderful idea, oh, that's marvellous. We'll, you know, what about it?" And I thought "Oh, I don't know," you know, my heart was in my mouth and I thought, oh,

Photo. Flo holding papers

Flo v/o: you know, I wasn't sure whether I particularly wanted to be a politician in

Flo

Flo sync: my own right, because I had always thought that one politician in the family was enough,

Photo. Flo in office

Flo v/o: but I wasn't there just to do Joh's bidding as you might say.

Flo

Flo sync: I think that's what they really thought, that he'd sent me off down here, down to Canberra to do what he wanted me to. What they seemed to forget was that it wasn't Joh who sent me,

Photo. Flo in hat holding air ticket

Flo v/o: it was the people of Queensland who voted to send me down to Canberra

Flo

Flo sync: and I was there representing them and I tried to do the job to the very best of my ability.

Photo. Flo an man on stage

Flo v/o: And I ended up by being the party whip. I was Deputy Leader of the

Flo

Flo sync: National Party for a number of years, and Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the senate, so I had plenty of extra responsibilities while I was down there.

Excerpt from news bulletin [8 shots]

Super:

Peter Harvey v/o: Queensland issues were the last thing on Florence Bjelke-Petersen's mind today. The wife of the Queensland Premier will be sworn in as a Senator tomorrow and she says she's now deeply concerned about national affairs. Mrs. Bjelke-Petersen plans to work for the tax paying battler, she'll campaign against strikes and she intends over the next six years to shake off her housewife image.

Flo sync: Well I'm glad I can make pumpkin scones but I don't want to be known down here as a pumpkin scone maker. I'm down here to be a politician. But I think if you can make good pumpkin scones well then you can be a good politician.

News bulletin excerpt [6 shots]

Flo sync: Although you might say 'oh what's pumpkin scones got to do with politics' do you know....

Reporter v/o: Senator Lady Flo on the hustings in Labor's most marginal Queensland seat Rankin. The Senator managed to catch up with most of small businesses in the Inala and Browns Plains Shopping Centres. On her way she handed out some of those famous recipes, adding a little personal advice.

Flo sync: Tell them to put them on the top, top shelf of the oven.

Flo v/o: I must say as far as the

Flo

Flo sync: pumpkin scones are concerned, I've had a lot of very good publicity. A lot of people said to me "But Florence do you really

Photo. Flo holding scone

Flo v/o: like being connected with pumpkin scones?"

Flo

Flo sync: I said "Look," I said "they helped me to relate to women who make scones and men who eat them and when you're in politics that's all the people, you know, who

Photo. Flo at large commercial oven with tray of scones

Flo v/o: vote for you."

Interviewer o/s: Your fame's travelled abroad with it though hasn't it?

Flo

Flo sync: Oh yes [laughs] I did have that one instance of course when Joh was

Photo. Flo and Prince Charles

Flo v/o: welcoming Prince Charles, and he was replying to Joh's welcome

Flo

Flo sync: and he said "You know, every time I come to Queensland I find the same Premier." Well of course he couldn't say that now but this is what he said in '83 and he said he wondered whether that was due to his wife's pumpkin scones that his mother, the Queen, had told him about. So I thought well, if the Queen knew about them, there's nothing wrong with pumpkin scones. The only thing is, I did wonder to myself on a number of occasions who had told her

Photo. Hand reaching for scones. Tilt up to Flo kissing Joh

Flo v/o: and what they said.

Interviewer o/s: Why do you think it actually was that the National Party of Queensland decided to drop Joh?

Flo

Flo sync: He fell out with his Party President, Sir Robert Sparkes. Sir Robert Sparkes wanted him to bring in condoms in the schools. He wanted him you know, to sort of, allow prostitution and things like that, and Joh said to him "Bob," he said "I don't believe in those sort of things, I don't

Photo. Joh surrounded by press. Slow zoom in to Joh

Dissolve to:

Flo v/o: want to do it."

Interviewer o/s: Do you think that some of it had to do with the fact that the Party got worried about all the things that came out of the Fitzgerald Inquiry

Photo. Joh surrounded by press

that were going on, that had got a bit out of control? Do you think that that was part of it?

Flo

Flo sync: Fitzgerald was inquiring into the police, and it wasn't until they changed the Premier that the Premier then decided he was going to sweep a broom right through the government. And then, of course, I mean they ended up with about four of their own Ministers put into jail and of course people seem to think that if you, they'd used three or four thousand dollars you know to entertain their relatives. I actually believe that if it was private enterprise, and heads of private enterprise departments were entertaining their, you know, relatives nobody would have queried it at all. I sort of felt that they were, it was very small amounts. Not that I'm suggesting that it's right

Photo. Llew Edwards [?]

Flo v/o: of course, I suppose you could say that that's

Photo. ?

what, you know, Ministers and are

Photo. ? [?]

responsible for using public monies

Photo. Yvonne Chapman [?]

and they must have made perhaps an error of judgment.

Flo

Flo sync: I personally believe that if they'd, you know, paid it back and had a sentence that was sort of suspended, would have been a much better way to deal with the problem as far as I'm concerned. But then again, I'm not a judge. If I'd have been in that position I might have thought differently, who would know.

Archival. Joh arriving at court. News bulletin excerpt [5 shots]
Super: Brisbane, September, 1991

News Reporter v/o: In George Street, Brisbane, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Queensland Premier for nineteen years approaches the court complex surrounded by his family.

Joh sync: You just wait and see about that.

News Reporter v/o: The charge of perjury expected to proceed against Sir Joh tomorrow afternoon relates to evidence he gave to the Fitzgerald Inquiry concerning his knowledge

Photo.

of the business activities of the Singapore based businessman, Robert Sng.

Archival. Joh arriving at court. News bulletin excerpt [1 shot]

The prosecution has indicated Mr. Sng will be one of twenty-three witnesses. The maximum penalty in Queensland for perjury is fourteen years jail.

Man sync: You haven't lost the charisma to draw the media.

Joh o/s: No. No.

Flo v/o: Well I think you've got to admit that it was a very worrying

Flo. Slow zoom in to BCU Flo

Flo sync: time. I think Joh might have borne up better than I did actually. But I think when you see your husband placed in a position like that where you really know that it's not, there's nothing in the charge that they've laid, but that his future lay in the hands of twelve jurors who are inclined -- particularly when you realise at that particular time that there were within that jury a number of very strong Labor supporters. We know that one was a shop steward, we know that one was the wife of a Unionist, we had been told that, so we knew that there were very strong Labor people there. Now nothing much comes out about that, all they talk about is Luke Shaw and how he was at one time a secretary of a Young National Party Branch.

Archival. Joh leaving court. News bulletin excerpt [2 shots]

Super: Brisbane, September, 1991

Archival. Joh outside court

News Reporter v/o: It was the decision everyone had been waiting for, not least Sir Joh. It took only a few minutes for the Crown to withdraw the indictment and to discharge him to waiting media.

Archival. News bulletin excerpt [7 shots]

Joh sync: I have been cleared of the charges and accusations that were made against me. I am now free in other words. I once said that four years ago....

News Reporter v/o: And that's how long it's taken. It's four years since the start of the Fitzgerald Corruption Inquiry at which Sir Joh gave evidence, which the Crown alleged, was false. Sir Joh's trial was aborted nearly two weeks ago when the jury could not agree on a verdict. It was revealed that the jury foreman had been a National Party Official and had links with the Friends of Joh group.

Flo

Flo sync: Luke Shaw was not a member of the Friends of Joh. Luke Shaw had been a branch secretary for a little while in one of the youth, one of the Young National Party branches. And bear in mind that Luke Shaw wasn't even a member of the National Party while Joh was Premier. He only became a member of the National Party after Joh got out, so you wouldn't have thought that he was particularly a Joh supporter. But if he hadn't been there who knows. I think Joh could have easily reposed in jail, because I believe that the Labor Party in Queensland in particular were anxious that that's where he should go. I think he'd annoyed them for so long, and they hadn't been able to get rid of him for nineteen and a half years, I think that they probably wanted to perhaps pay him back.

Photo. Luke Shaw

Interviewer o/s: Luke Shaw was the cousin of one of your secretaries, wasn't he?

Flo

Flo sync: Yes, well I found that out after the trial was over. I'd never heard of Luke Shaw. And I mean Kathleen had, I don't know how many cousins she had, I think she did tell me once. I don't know whether it was up to sixty or seventy, something like that. And I'd never heard of Luke Shaw. I knew she had plenty of cousins.

Archival. Joh leaving court

Flo v/o: But I knew that they wanted to get Joh

Archival. Media surround Joh

and had Luke Shaw not been there

Archival. Joh flanked by policeman

I guess they would have got him and I believe that they wouldn't have worried about the fact that he was over

Flo

Flo sync: eighty. I'm quite sure they would have plonked him in jail, as simple as that. So I am very grateful to Luke Shaw, I'm very grateful to the dear Lord for making sure that he was there at exactly the right time.

Interviewer o/s: Did it ever, during that period,

Photo. Joh and Flo both drinking from glasses

cross your mind that they might be right, that he might have something to hide that you didn't know about?

Flo

Flo sync: No because, well certainly as far as our own private business was concerned I knew everything that went on because I did all the, I did all the financial and all the office work and all the accounts and I knew and I knew jolly well that, you know, that there was nothing there.

Photo. Joh and Flo outside house

Dissolve to:

Interviewer o/s: Now you and Joh have always been known for the stand that you've

Photo. Joh and Flo at table in back yard

taken on moral issues, especially the issues relating to sexual morality but it was also

Flo

true that one of the things that came out of the Inquiries was that during the period Joh was Premier there was a lot of corruption and protection of prostitution and other sexual activity around Queensland. How did you feel about that when it all came out that that had been going on all along?

Flo sync: Well I was very sorry about that. Actually, Joh had done what Mr. Whitrod asked him in the earlier days and had had two Scotland Yard inquiries into the police and whether there was corruption, and they couldn't find any. So I wasn't sure quite sure how Joh himself was able to be supposed to know that that was going on. You feel very sad about it when if this comes out that that was true and actually even putting away the Police Commissioner was on the word of a corrupt policeman himself, but that's by the way. But all I say to you is, if you read the papers now, there's plenty of prostitution around still, and I mean for all the talk about it and how they were going to clean things up in Queensland, crime and murder and rape, prostitution and all these problems are still there and much, much worse than they were in Joh's day.

Photo. Flo and Joh. Joh on telephone

Interviewer o/s: Looking back on this life, what's been the best part of it for you?

Flo

Flo sync: Well I think that the best part of my life, I suppose, has been my married life. I think that I've had a wonderfully blessed married life, although I had a very happy childhood, but if you asked me to pick it out I think the blessing

Photo. Flo, Joh and family

Dissolve to:

Flo v/o: that God has given us in having four children and now twelve grandchildren. I think that's been a wonderful time in my life.

Photo. Flo and Joh. Tilt down to baby in Flo's arms

Interviewer o/s: What kind of an Australia do you think that your grandchildren will be growing up in and do you think it's going to be a good place for them?

Flo

Flo sync: Well I think that they could have problems in Australia. I really, honestly get very worried

Photo. Flo

Flo v/o: about how Australia is going, the pornography that we see,

Flo. Slow zoom in to CU

Flo sync: that we hear about that, you know, is becoming the norm. I think the murders, the rape, the crime that we have in front of us and

Photo. Flo

Flo v/o: the homosexual type of living that no, everybody

Flo

Flo sync: seems to think 'well let's keep on going' and I look back, actually not so long ago I read in the first chapter of the Book of Romans in the bible about what happened in Rome in that time that that Book of Romans was being written. The same type of thing was happening and we all know how the Roman Empire disintegrated.

Photo. Flo at pulpit

Flo v/o: I read just recently, or I heard just recently, that Australia is no more considered a Christian country.

Flo

Flo sync: So that those are the sort of things that worry me for my children and my children -- not so much for my children, they've got their standards they know, it'd be my grandchildren as they're growing up into a situation like we have in Australia at the present time.

Interviewer o/s: You also believe

Photo. Flo sitting on bank of dam

that as a result of your Christian faith, that there will be judgment after death.

Flo.

Freeze frame at conclusion of dialogue. Picture diminishes.
Credits begin over:

What do you feel when you think about that? Is there anything that you've ever done in your life that you feel at all ashamed about or worried about?

Flo sync: Well nothing, nothing big that I think of, but look, we make mistakes and we go wrong in God's sight every day and I think the main thing is that you know that you have a saviour, you know that because Jesus died and accepted that load of wrongdoing that we had, that we have a hope, that he has forgiven us, we've been forgiven because of the life that he gave for us. And I think that it's no good going through life worrying about the things that you've done when you know that Jesus has paid the sacrifice for you. And so I mean I look forward at the end of this life to a life beyond the grave, a life of reunion with those of my dear ones who have had faith and trust in their Lord and saviour when that time comes. And whether there's judgment, I mean, you know, if there's judgment I rely completely on Jesus.

Interviewer
ROBIN HUGHES

Camera
STEVE ISAAC

Sound Recording
WARWICK FINLAY

Sound Mixing
ROBERT SULLIVAN

Music

Research
GRAHAM SHIRLEY
FRANK HEIMANS

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FRANK HAINES

Production Accountant
CAROLYN JOHNSON

Production Assistant
AMANDA HOWITT

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JANE MANNING

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PHIL STUART-JONES

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KAYE WARREN

Publicity
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Film Australia would like to thank
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ABC TV ARCHIVES
NINE NETWORK
QUEENSLAND NEWSPAPERS LTD
JOHN FAIRFAX LTD
CANBERRA TIMES

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FRANK HEIMANS

Executive Producer
SHARON CONNOLLY

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