Joh told me quit the Nats, says Flo
02.05.2005
FLO Bjelke-Petersen has revealed how she resisted pressure from her husband to quit the Nationals and serve out her Senate term as an independent because Sir Joh was angry with the party.
Sir Joh made the suggestion to his wife when he was dumped by the party's parliamentary team in 1987 after serving 19 years as Queensland premier and after a parliamentary career as a Nationals MP of more than 40 years.
In an ABC radio interview last night, Lady Flo said Sir Joh was ``so mad with the Nationals'' at the time that he told her: ``Florence, you must be an independent. You can't continue to be a National Party senator.''
Lady Flo, who served a six-year term from 1986, said she replied: ``Joh, there's no way in the world I'm going to be an independent. I'm going to stay as a National Party senator because the people of Queensland elected me.
``I'm not going to do that -- I don't want to be an independent down in Canberra.''
Sir Joh, who was a life member of the Nationals, died last Sunday aged 94.
His state funeral will be held tomorrow at his home town of Kingaroy, northwest of Brisbane, and he will be buried on his farming property, Bethany.
Lady Flo also revealed she ``was not terribly enthralled'' with Sir Joh's attempt to become prime minister in 1986 in what was known as the Joh for PM campaign.
Asked if she tried to dissuade him from the campaign, Lady Flo said: ``Well, I didn't sort of exactly oppose him. I just sort of told him I didn't think it was a very good idea.
``But anyway, he fired ahead and thought it was.''
She said she was upset when Sir Joh was charged with perjury following the 1987-89 Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption, and emphasised her belief that he was never corrupt.
``Perjury is telling downright lies to make sure you get off the hook. Now Joh never told a downright lie at all,'' Lady Flo said.
``All he did was perhaps not tell them quite enough about the Sng man (Robert Sng, the Singaporean businessman accused of paying cash to Sir Joh) who produced the money.''
She said he was ``really bitter'' about the Fitzgerald inquiry, and that he could not understand how it was allowed to go from being a police inquiry into an inquiry into the Nationals.
Lady Flo also defended Sir Joh's political record on indigenous issues, and pointed out that four councillors from the Hope Vale Aboriginal community in Cape York would attend tomorrow's funeral service.
Hope Vale was established in the 1940s by Sir Joh and the Lutheran Church before he entered parliament.
The Bjelke-Petersen family has declared Bethany an ``exclusion zone'' for the media and their helicopters, asking that no photographs be taken of the burial service and no footage be taken of the grave until it has a headstone and landscaping
