It is a sad truth that usually only some sort of cataclysm gives a political jurisdiction the opportunity for wholesale and much-needed reforms.
On my reckoning, Queensland had two such opportunities — the collapse of the squattocracy signalled by the election of Thomas Joseph Ryan’s Labor government in 1915 and the response to the report into police and political corruption by Tony Fitzgerald QC in 1989.
Initially limited terms of reference allowed Fitzgerald to look at media-alleged police favouritism of a few brothel and illegal gambling entrepreneurs. Despite this, Fitzgerald and his inquiry went on to effectively demolish the near 20-year career of premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and 32 years of Country/National Party government that had continued the freewheeling corruption of decades of previous Labor governments.
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