Rob Borbidge

Infobox Premier | name =Rob Borbidge


nationality =Australian
order =35th Premier of Queensland
term_start =20 February 1996
term_end =26 June 1998
deputy =
predecessor =Wayne Goss
successor =Peter Beattie
birth_date =birth date and age|1954|8|12|df=y
birth_place =Ararat, Victoria
death_date =
death_place =
constituency =Surfers Paradise
party =National Party of Australia
spouse =
profession =
religion =


footnotes =|

Robert Edward Borbidge AO (born 12 August 1954), Australian politician, was the 35th Premier of Queensland, and leader of the Queensland branch of the National Party. His term as Premier was contemporaneous with the rise of the One Nation Party of Pauline Hanson, which would see him lose office within two years.

Early life

Borbidge was born in the town of Ararat in Victoria in 1954. After becoming involved in the affairs of the Country Party at a young age, he unsuccessfully stood for election for the Victorian state seat of Ripon. His parents owned a sheep property and were attracted to Queensland by Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's abolition of death duties, moving to the Gold Coast. He attended The Southport School and worked in his family motel business. At this time, the Gold Coast was the home of the property development boom that the Bjelke-Petersen government actively fostered, working in close co-operation with a group of developers known as the "white-shoe brigade".

Parliamentary and Ministerial career

In an attempt to broaden its electoral base and reduce the influence of its coalition partner, the Liberal Party, the Country Party renamed itself as the National Party and contested seats in urbanised areas such as the Gold Coast outside of its rural heartland. As a sign of this, in 1980 Borbidge contested and won the seat of Surfers Paradise from the sitting Liberal member, who had alleged corruption in property development by the Bjelke-Petersen government.

By the late 1980s allegations of official corruption arising out of the Fitzgerald Inquiry had engulfed Bjelke-Petersen, who was replaced as Premier and National Party leader in 1987 by Mike Ahern. Borbidge, as a member of the new generation of Nationals untouched by political scandal, was promoted by Ahern to Cabinet as Minister for Small Business, Communications and Technology. He received the important portfolio of Tourism in 1989 and was briefly made Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Tourism by Ahern's successor Russell Cooper before he lost office at the hands of the Labor Party's Wayne Goss in the elections of 1989.

National Party leadership

In the post-election partyroom ballot, Borbidge was elected Deputy Leader of the party. The shell-shocked Nationals worked at rebuilding the fragile coalition with the Liberals and adjusting to opposition after 32 years in office. In December 1991 an inquiry by the Criminal Justice Commission was announced to investigate irregularities in the travel allowances of members of Parliament. Cooper announced that he was one of the individuals under investigation and resigned as National Party leader in favour of Borbidge.

In the lead-up to the 1992 elections Borbidge attempted to make overtures to the Liberals about reforming the coalition, but was rebuffed by the Liberals, who were aiming to finally achieve long-awaited senior coalition party status in Queensland. This did not eventuate, Goss remained in office, and the chastened parties discussed merging before agreeing to sign a new coalition agreement.

Borbidge and Liberal leader Joan Sheldon failed initially to make much headway against the Goss government, with some disgruntled Nationals comparing Borbidge unfavourably to Bjelke-Petersen. In response to speculation about the leadership, Borbidge resigned as leader in June 1994 before being re-elected unopposed.

The Goss government's fortunes suffered a sharp reversal when it announced plans to construct a bypass through areas of bushland that comprised significant reserves of koala habitats. Borbidge skillfully harnessed the groundswell of opposition arising from this and other controversial decisions to encourage a large protest vote. Combined with the cynical mood engendered by the wildly unpopular Keating Labor federal government, this protest vote destroyed the Goss government's majority in the elections of July 1995. Goss relied on a majority of one vote in the Legislative Assembly. The Court of Disputed Returns ordered a reballot after alleged irregularities in the narrowly Labor held electorate of Mundingburra. In February 1996 the Liberal candidate, Frank Tanti, won the subsequent by-election and the numbers in the 89-seat Legislative Assembly were equal, with 44 Coalition seats versus 44 Labor seats and one Independent. The independent member for Gladstone, Liz Cunningham, announced that she would support the coalition and Borbidge became Premier.

Premiership

Borbidge's government imitated that of Goss when it initiated sweeping changes in the public service when it won office. In some cases, figures who had been demoted or dismissed when Goss had come to power were reinstated to their former positions. Borbidge was criticised for attempting to stack the public service, but he counter-alleged that the public service was already subject to severe Labor bias.

The Borbidge government imitated the changes made by the Liberal government of John Howard to the industrial relations system by introducing Queensland Workplace Agreements (QWA's), in a mirror of the new Australian Workplace Agreements. Borbidge also supported Howard in his efforts to reform Australian gun ownership laws after the Port Arthur massacre, a move that brought him unpopularity in some traditional National Party quarters. When in 1997 the High Court of Australia expanded the recently-introduced concept of Native title in bringing down the Wik decision (for which Borbidge criticised the bench as "historical dills"), Borbidge argued that Howard's proposed changes to the Native Title Act did not go far enough in abolishing native title from pastoral leases. The Act was supported by the National party federally, however.

The Borbidge government was almost immediately beset by scandal when it was revealed that during the Mundingburra by-election campaign, Borbidge and Cooper (now Minister for Police) had signed a secret Memorandum of Understanding with the Queensland Police Union guaranteeing the QPU the repeal of unpopular Goss government measures, the power of veto over senior police appointments, and increased police funding in return for a donation of $20,000 to the by-election campaign. This close relationship evoked many memories of the Bjelke-Petersen era, where relations between the executive and the police service were (sometimes improperly) close.

The matter was referred to the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), a body that had been established on the recommendation of the Fitzgerald Inquiry and that was regarded poorly both by the National Party and the Queensland Police. Retired New South Wales Supreme Court judge Kenneth Carruthers QC was appointed to lead the inquiry, which also investigated an allegedly improper agreement between the Labor Party and the Sporting Shooter's Association.

The government became embroiled in a war of words with the CJC, and Sheldon's first budget as Treasurer reduced funding for the body. In October 1996 the government announced an inquiry into the CJC itself. This had a dramatic sequel when after the new inquiry, led by retired Queensland Supreme Court judges Peter Connolly QC and Kevin Ryan QC, requested that Carruthers hand over all records from his inquiry, he resigned without completing his inquiry, alleging interference. The Carruthers Inquiry was completed by Bob Gotterson QC and Brendan Butler SC, who ultimately exonerated all the participants from facing potential criminal charges.

In June 1997 Carruthers and the CJC went to the Supreme Court of Queensland applying for an end to the Connolly-Ryan inquiry. The Court closed the inquiry in August, stating that it had acted outside of its terms of reference and Connolly was compromised by bias. A subsequent motion of no confidence was passed in the Parliament against Denver Beanland, Attorney-General, with Cunningham's support, but Beanland refused to resign.

In the lead-up to the 1998 elections, intense speculation surrounded the role that the new One Nation Party, formed in April 1997 by Queensland federal MP Pauline Hanson, would play. Hanson's reactionary positions on issues such as multiculturalism, gun ownership and native title were well-received in rural and regional Queensland, and the Nationals struggled to prevent leakage of their electoral base to One Nation. The cynical mood in the electorate that Borbidge had harnessed to win office now began to turn against him, as he endeavoured to satisfy both the hard-line conservatives deserting the Nationals, and the urban Liberal supporters who detested Hanson and her views. Borbidge attempted to ensure that One Nation would be placed last on coalition how-to-vote cards, but the organisational wings of both the Liberal and National parties rebuffed him and insisted that they would preference One Nation ahead of Labor (see Australian electoral system).

In the 1998 election, the Liberals were severely punished for this stance, while unexpectedly high One Nation primary vote totals saw the new party gain 11 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Coalition was reduced to 32 seats, and after independent Peter Wellington agreed to support a minority Labor government led by Peter Beattie, Borbidge resigned from office.

Borbidge made little headway as Opposition Leader against Beattie. After Beattie's government secured a landslide re-election victory at the 2001 state election, Borbidge vacated the National Party leadership and created controversy when he immediately resigned from parliament, forcing a by-election in Surfers Paradise. Voter backlash at having to return to the polls so quickly resulted in the election of an independent member in the traditionally safe National seat.

Further reading

*Wear, Rae. Robert Edward Borbidge: In the Shadow of Bjelke-Petersen. In Murphy D, Joyce R, Cribb M, and Wear, R (Ed.), "The Premiers of Queensland" pp. 388-399. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 0-7022-3173-8.