Peter Beattie

Infobox Premier | name =Peter Beattie
nationality =Australian


order =36th Premier of Queensland
term_start =20 June 1998
term_end =13 September 2007
deputy =
predecessor =Rob Borbidge
successor =Anna Bligh
birth_date =birth date and age|1952|11|18|df=y
birth_place =Sydney, New South Wales
death_date =
death_place =
constituency =Brisbane Central
party =Australian Labor Party
spouse =Heather Beattie
profession =
religion =


footnotes =|

Peter Douglas Beattie (born 18 November 1952), Australian politician, was the 36th Premier of the Australian state of Queensland for nine years and leader of the Australian Labor Party in that state for eleven and a half years. His sweeping victories in the 2001, 2004 and 2006 state elections confirmed him as one of the most electorally successful politicians in Australia.

His Premiership lasted from 20 June 1998 to 13 September 2007 when he retired electorally undefeated. In his later years he groomed and was then succeeded by his Deputy Anna Bligh who became the first woman Premier of Queensland.

Before Parliament

Beattie was born in Sydney as the youngest of seven children. He was raised by his grandmother at Atherton, a small town in Northern Queensland. At school, he met Heather Scott-Halliday, whom he later married. They have three teenage children and live in Windsor, a suburb of Brisbane.

After Beattie moved to Brisbane, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Queensland (where he was President of the Student Club at St John's College, University of Queensland), earned a Master of Arts degree from Queensland University of Technology, and then entered the legal practise. In 1974 he joined the Labor Party, which had been in opposition for 17 years and had just suffered the worst defeat in its history at the hands of the dominant National Party Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

Beattie became involved in the campaign led by Dr Denis Murphy to reform the Queensland branch of the party, which was dominated by elderly and conservative trade union leaders. In 1981 the federal Labor Party leader, Bill Hayden, led a federal intervention in Queensland, and Beattie became Queensland State Secretary. The result of his reforms was eventual electoral success, with the election of Wayne Goss as Queensland's first Labor Premier since Vince Gair in 1957.

Prior to his election to Parliament and in addition to State Secretary, Beattie was a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland and secretary of the Railway Stationmasters' Union.

Early parliamentary career (1989-1996)

At the 1989 election Beattie was elected to the Queensland Parliament as MP for Brisbane Central. Something of a maverick within the parliamentary party during his early term, Beattie was mistrusted by faction leaders and kept out of the ministry. His main post was as chairman of the parliamentary committee overseeing the Criminal Justice Commission (now the Crime and Misconduct Commission), a role in which he frequently took the side of CJC Commissioner Sir Max Bingham against the Goss government, earning Goss's ire. Beattie also publicly criticised Goss for being out of touch. Goss did not appoint him to the ministry until Labor's near defeat at the 1995 election, where Beattie became Minister for Health. The following year, however, the Goss government lost office following defeat in the Mundingburra by-election.

Premier (1998-2007)

At the 1998 state election Labor won 44 seats out of 89 and succeeded in forming a minority government with the support of an independent MP, Peter Wellington; this saw Beattie become Premier. Later following a by-election the Labor Party achieved a majority in its own right.

In office, Beattie proved to be a shrewd populist leader. He travelled tirelessly to all parts of the large and diverse state, and despite his Brisbane base made the most of his background in Atherton, winning considerable popularity in regional areas. He was expected to be comfortably re-elected in 2001, but shortly before the election he faced a crisis when an inquiry revealed that a number of MPs and party activists (including the Deputy Premier Jim Elder, a former State Secretary and newly elected MP Mike Kaiser, and a senior adviser to Wayne Goss) had been engaged in breaches of the Electoral Act by falsely enrolling people to boost their faction's strength in internal party ballots. Beattie acted swiftly, forcing the MPs to quit politics and others involved to resign from the ALP. He was rewarded with a crushing victory, winning 66 seats of 89.

Beattie’s key agenda has been to transform Queensland into Australia’s Smart State by restructuring the education system, skilling the workforce and encouraging research and development and high tech biotechnology, information technology and aviation industries to locate in Queensland. In 2003, the Premier was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Queensland "in recognition of his leadership and commitment to higher education through Smart State initiatives and his support for research in the fields of biotechnology and nanotechnology". [ [http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=5199 Queensland Premier to receive UQ honour] - University of Queensland, 7 Dec 2003]

2004 state election

In February 2004 Beattie again went to the polls, and again a crisis blew up shortly before the election, with a highly critical report on the state of Queensland's system of child protection. Beattie accepted full personal responsibility for the issue, and paradoxically turned the issue into a positive for the government. At the 7 February elections Beattie won 63 seats, a net loss of only three, losing four seats to the National-Liberal Opposition but gaining one from them. This made him one of the most successful state politicians in Australian history.

2005/2006 Queensland Health crisis

In the latter part of 2005, Beattie faced potentially his most serious political crisis: the revelations and inquiries into Queensland Health and the Bundaberg public hospital after Jayant Patel, an Indian-born surgeon who was struck off the register in the United States for malpractice, performed several botched operations in the hospital, some of which resulted in death, and then fled the country to the US. Amid this controversy, the Speaker, Ray Hollis, resigned after controversy associated with his use of Parliamentary expenditure, and the Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Terry Mackenroth, retired, forcing by-elections in the safe Labor seats of Redcliffe and Chatsworth on 20 August. The ALP suffered major swings against it and both seats were lost to the Liberal Party, the first serious electoral setback for Beattie since becoming Premier.

A Newspoll in late 2005 showed support for Labor in Queensland down six percentage points to 50 per cent, an all-time low since Beattie became Premier. Following the retirement of the Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr in 2005, Beattie became the longest-serving state Premier among his contemporaries.

2006 state election

Despite this, Beattie went on to win the September 2006 election convincingly, with a slight swing towards the ALP in terms of its primary vote, and two party preferred result. [cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bulletproof-beattie-cruises-to-fourth-victory-in-a-row/2006/09/09/1157222376380.html|title=Bulletproof Beattie cruises to fourth victory in a row|date=September 10, 2006|publisher=Sydney Morning Herald] Coalition Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg stepped down. Before the election Liberal Leader Bob Quinn was forced by his party colleagues to step down a fortnight before polling day. [cite news|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2006/08/07/1708778.htm|title=Party changes renew Qld election speculation|date=August 8, 2006|publisher=ABC News] The campaign of Quinn's replacement Dr Bruce Flegg was characterized by inexperience and indecisiveness and lacked an organised, professional approach. [cite news|url=http://www.queenslandmediaclub.com.au/qmc/01_cms/details.asp?k_id=129|title=Nothing great about debate or the campaign|date=September 09, 2006|publisher=The Australian - Media clipping re-published by Queensland Media Club] Premier Beattie therefore was never challenged by the opposition and was able to secure a fourth consecutive term in office. This result puts Beattie in the realm of iconic political figures. He is the only state Labor leader since Neville Wran, NSW Labor Premier from 1976 to 1986, to do so and is Queensland's fourth longest serving Premier after Labor's William Forgan Smith (1932 - 1942), the Country Party's Frank Nicklin (1957 - 1968) and National Party Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (1968 - 1987).

Retirement

Beattie announced on 10 September 2007 his decision to retire from politics. His resignation as Premier officially took effect on 13 September 2007. At the time of his retirement, he was the longest-serving state premier in the country. [ [http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/10/2028691.htm 'Beattie retires as Qld Premier'] , ABC News online, 10 September 2007.] The Labor caucus elected Anna Bligh as its leader on 12 September. [ [http://www.qld.alp.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=39 'Anna Bligh: first woman to be Queensland Premier'] , Australian Labor Party, retrieved 12 September 2007.]

He officially stood down as the Member for Brisbane Central on 14 September 2007.

Other matters

Beattie's popularity has led to speculation that he would leave Queensland and enter national politics, [cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/is-peter-beattie-preparing-to-leap-into-federal-politics/2005/07/02/1119724847484.html|title=Is Peter Beattie Preparing To Leap Into Federal Politics?|date=July 2, 2005|accessdate=2007-08-04|publisher=SMH] particularly after federal Labor's defeat at the 2001 federal election. But Beattie has resisted such suggestions, saying that he loved Queensland too much to leave, and anyway Canberra was "too cold". [cite news|url=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/07/1075854115051.html|title=Man of the people magic|date=February 8, 2004|publisher=The Age] On announcing his retirement he again ruled out a move to federal politics, saying that he would, politically speaking, disappear. [cite news|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/beattie-quits-and-promises-to-disappear/2007/09/10/1189276635262.html|title=Beattie quits and promises to disappear|date=11 September 2007|publisher=The Age|author=Cosima Marriner]

In May 2005 Beattie released his autobiography "Making A Difference", in which he described his upbringing, political life and his views on key issues, including health, education and social reform. The book is part memoir, part manifesto. [ [http://gleebooks.com.au/default.asp?p=displaybook_asp?bookId=127199&isbn=9780732273996 "Making A Difference"] - listing on publisher Gleebooks' website] Beattie says that the reason he released the book while he is in office, rather than when he is retired, is because no-one would want to read about him if he was not in the public arena. This is Beattie's third book after his earlier autobiographical piece "In the Arena" (1990) and the thriller "The Year of the Dangerous Ones".

In the media

Beattie's self-description as a "media tart" [ [http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s125625.htm Beattie an unashamed 'media tart'] - AM Archive, ABC Local Radio, Thursday, 11 May, 2000] as well as his political successes have led to a love-hate relationship with "The Courier-Mail", Brisbane's daily newspaper. Columnist Peter Wear, for example, ran a long-running satire on Queensland politics in general with the major role played by "President for Life Mbeattie".

The controversy over the performance of the government-owned electricity supplier Energex during the severe 2003-2004 storm season in South East Queensland resulted in the characterisation of Beattie as "Power Point Pete" by "Courier-Mail" cartoonist Sean Leahy, with the location of the drawing's eyes and nose designed to replicate the holes of a power point.

In August 2007 Beattie engendered further controversy through reforms of Local Councils in Queensland. Proposals to reduce the number of councils from 154 to 72 further eroded his popularity in regional areas.Fact|date=September 2007 Public servants were found to have rigged on-line polls and to have called talk back radio programmes in attempts to portray the changes as being more popular than unpopular.Fact|date=September 2007 Beattie was forced to remove a section of the reform legislation that threatened to fine local councilors who called for plebiscites on the issue.Fact|date=September 2007

Personal

Peter is married to wife Professor Heather Beattie. They have three adult children, Larissa, Denis and Matthew Beattie. He is an Anglican, and his wife is the daughter of an Anglican clergyman. His favorite beer brand is XXXX.

References

External links

* [http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/legislativeAssembly/documents/memberBio/BeattiePeter.htm Official Biography]
* [http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20382799-1248,00.html Beattie won his fourth term in office] , at a state election held on Saturday, 9 September 2006.
* [http://enc.slq.qld.gov.au/logicrouter/servlet/LogicRouter?PAGE=object&OUTPUTXSL=object_enc36ui.xslt&pm_RC=REPOSLQEAD&pm_OI=43406&pm_GT=Y&pm_IAC=Y&api_1=GET_OBJECT_XML&num_result= Beattie's Collection: includes medals, photographs and papers] This collection is held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland