Workers to picket Sir Joh's funeral
26.04.2005
ELECTRICITY workers sacked by Joh Bjelke-Petersen's National Party government during one of Queensland's most divisive industrial disputes will picket the former premier's state funeral next week.
Many of the 1000 workers sacked in 1985 when they went on strike after refusing to sign individual contracts, as an unrepentant Sir Joh vowed to ``keep the lights turned on'' in Queensland, cannot forget the bitter episode, which saw them stripped of their livelihoods and superannuation entitlements.
But community leaders in Kingaroy yesterday joined the Queensland Nationals in warning that picketers could expect a fiery reception from mourners. Veteran left-wing protest leader Brian Laver said a meeting in Brisbane yesterday resolved to proceed with the picket outside next Tuesday's funeral, to be held in Kingaroy Town Hall.
Mr Laver said workers sacked during the South-East Queensland Electricity Board dispute 20 years ago would be among the picketers.
``It is a publicly funded funeral and we will be protesting at the use of taxpayers' money to fund it,'' Mr Laver said.
Premier Peter Beattie, who approved a state funeral for his former political rival, urged the workers not to picket, but conceded it was their democratic right.
``They may wish to express their views,'' Mr Beattie said. ``They have strong views about this and a number of them have expressed those to me over the years.
``I understand how they feel, but I don't know that protesting at the funeral would be appropriate.''
While Mr Beattie has stressed that he will be attending the funeral on behalf of ``all Queenslanders'', he is likely to be the only ALP figure there.
Former premier Wayne Goss, who was the Labor leader who ended the Nationals' long reign of power in 1989 and whose government restored the SEQEB workers' superannuation benefits, said he would not be attending the funeral.
Two other ALP stalwarts who were opposition leaders when Sir Joh was premier, Tom Burns and Nev Warburton, also said they would not be attending.
Mr Burns, 73, a former ALP national president and deputy premier, said: ``I won't be attending the funeral. I am going fishing.''
Mr Warburton, also 73, said: ``I won't be going. I have no other comment. I said my piece when he was alive.''
Nationals' leader and Acting Prime Minister John Anderson confirmed his attendance at the funeral, while a ``disappointed'' Pauline Hanson said she would miss the service due to a prior engagement in Melbourne.
Queensland Police major event planning unit will field extra officers in an attempt to separate any picketers from the thousands of mourners who are expected to attend the funeral.
But in an indication of a split within the ranks of Sir Joh's detractors, Bernie Neville, the Electrical Trades Union organiser at the time of the SEQEB dispute, said he would not take part in the Kingaroy picket.
Mr Neville said that instead, he would attend a protest rally at Brisbane's King George Square to coincide with the funeral.
``There is no way in the world that Joh Bjelke-Petersen should be given a state funeral after what he did to those workers, especially by a Labor premier in Queensland,'' Mr Neville said.
Ironically, under the Bjelke-Petersen Government's Electricity (Continuity of Supply) Act it was an offence for sacked SEQEB workers and other protestors to stage pickets outside SEQEB facilities.
ETU Queensland secretary Dick Williams said the union did not support the funeral picket, but understood why people wanted to protest.
Kingaroy mayor Roger Nunn said picketers would be resented by mourners.
``They would see it as being very much in bad taste,'' Mr Nunn said.
