Joh for Canberra

The Joh for Canberra or Joh for PM campaign was the 1987 attempt by the Queensland branch of the National Party of Australia to install Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen as Prime Minister of Australia.

The campaign was announced some time before the 1987 federal elections, with the widespread distribution of "Joh for PM" bumper stickers. When the elections were announced, Bjelke-Petersen was forced to shelve the campaign as he was overseas visiting Disneyland at the time. While Bjelke-Petersen did not run as a candidate in that election himself, a number of candidates ran as "Joh's Nationals", in some cases on separate tickets from the official National Party.

The campaign was financed by a number of prominent Gold Coast property developers (commonly known as the "white shoe brigade"), many of whom had benefitted from favourable treatment from the Bjelke-Petersen state government. Although many of the white shoe brigade had been successful in business, they were ignorant of the realities of Federal politics.

Joh's populist appeal did not reach into Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two largest cities and home to close to half the Australian population, to any great extent. Bjelke-Petersen had no party base outside the Queensland National Party, and since Australia's Westminster system requires the Prime Minister to be capable of commanding a majority in the House of Representatives, in practice Bjelke-Petersen would have required the support of the Liberal Party and other state branches of the National Party, which refused to grant it - and were in any case in no position to do so without first winning the 1987 election. Neither John Howard nor Ian Sinclair, federal leaders of the Liberals and Nationals respectively, were prepared to accommodate Bjelke-Petersen. Although for a time Bjelke-Petersen looked to have the support of former Opposition Leader Andrew Peacock, and prominent National Farmers Federation President Ian McLachlan, this did not eventuate.

Spectacularly misguided, the Joh for Canberra campaign had the effect of splitting the federal Liberal-National Coalition and helping the Labor Party government of Bob Hawke to win another term. The campaign weakened the conservative forces both nationally and within Queensland, and resulted in severe internal divisions within the Queensland branch of the National Party. Labor's federal electoral victory, reliant on gains of seats in Queensland, was attributed to the Joh for PM campaign: "We couldn't have done it without Joh", State Secretary of the Queensland Labor Party Peter Beattie remarked.