Peter Beattie
Encyclopedia
Peter Douglas Beattie (born 18 November 1952), Australia
n 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 female Premier of Queensland.
, a small town in Northern Queensland. At school, he met Heather Scott-Halliday, whom he later married. They have three adult children and live in Wilston
, 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 practice
. 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. Eight years later, Wayne Goss
became 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.
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
.
Goss then stood down as ALP leader and Beattie was elected in his stead and thus becoming Opposition Leader.
In his first act as Opposition leader he moved a motion in Parliament that was passed preventing the new Coalition Premier Rob Borbidge from calling an early election due to fears from the ALP that an early election would deliver a substantial majority to the Coalition government and therefore substantial losses for the ALP.
; this saw Beattie become Premier. Later following a by-election
the Labor Party achieved a majority in its own right.
Beattie traveled 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 was 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
".
Opposition but gaining one from them. This made him one of the most successful state politicians in Australian history.
public hospital after Jayant Patel
, an India
n-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 the controversy, the health minister Gordon Nuttall
resigned his portfolio, 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.
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. The campaign of Quinn's replacement Dr Bruce Flegg
was characterized by inexperience and indecisiveness and lacked an organised, professional approach. 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).
as its leader on 12 September. In 2009, Anna Bligh led her party to a state election victory, thereby becoming the first Australian female to be popularly elected as a state premier.
He officially stood down as the Member for Brisbane Central on 14 September 2007. Beattie currently serves as Queensland's Trade Commissioner to North and South America, and is based in Los Angeles
, a position he was appointed to by Anna Bligh in March 2008 after previously stating that he would not accept a federal or state government role.
In late May 2010 Beattie announced that he was retiring early from his position as Queensland's Los Angeles-based trade and investment commissioner. In June 2010 it was announced that he had accepted a position with Clemson University
in South Carolina
. On 24 August 2011, the Gillard Government
appointed Beattie as Australia's first Resources Sector Supplier Envoy charged with promoting a Buy Australian at Home and Abroad program for supplying products to the Australian resources industry.
was "too cold". On announcing his retirement he again ruled out a move to federal politics, saying that he would, politically speaking, disappear.
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. 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".
, 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 the Beattie government proposed to reduce the number of councils from 154 to 72, which would result in the merger of a number of regional and extra-metropolitan councils into larger Regional Councils. This proved particularly unpopular in the affected regional areas.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n politician, was the 36th Premier
Premiers of Queensland
Before the 1890s, there was no developed party system in Queensland. Political affiliation labels before that time indicate a general tendency only. Before the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, political parties were more akin to parliamentary factions, and were fluid, informal and...
of the Australian state of Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
for nine years and leader of the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
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
Anna Bligh
Anna Maria Bligh is an Australian politician and the Premier of Queensland since 2007. The 2009 Queensland state election was the first time a female-led political party won or retained state or federal government in Australia...
who became the first female Premier of Queensland.
Before Parliament
Beattie was born in Sydney as the youngest of seven children. He was raised by his grandmother at AthertonAtherton, Queensland
Atherton is a town on the Atherton Tablelands of Far North Queensland, Australia. At the 2006 census, Atherton had a population of 7,068.-Roads:...
, a small town in Northern Queensland. At school, he met Heather Scott-Halliday, whom he later married. They have three adult children and live in Wilston
Wilston, Queensland
Wilston, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is located approximately three kilometres from the Brisbane central business district, and is a mixture of old and the new styles of architecture, from workers' cottages to modern architect-designed homes on Wilston Hill.Wilston is home to many...
, a suburb of Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
.
After Beattie moved to Brisbane, he graduated with a law degree
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...
from the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
(where he was President of the Student Club at St John's College, University of Queensland
St John's College, University of Queensland
St John's College is a co-educational college situated within the St Lucia Campus of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The college is affiliated with the University of Queensland with whom the college co-sponsors The Australian Institute of Ethics and the Professions...
), earned a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree from Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology is an Australian university with an applied emphasis in courses and research. Based in Brisbane, it has 40,000 students, including 6,000 international students, over 4,000 staff members, and an annual budget of more than A$750 million.QUT is marketed as "A...
, and then entered the legal practice
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
. 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
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG , was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, a period that saw considerable economic development in the state...
.
Beattie became involved in the campaign led by Dr Denis Murphy
Denis Murphy (Australian politician)
Dr. Denis Murphy , was an Australian Labor Party politician, historian and biographer.Murphy taught as an academic at the University of Queensland, writing extensively on the history of Labor in that state...
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
Bill Hayden
William George "Bill" Hayden AC was the 21st Governor-General of Australia. Prior to this, he represented the Australian Labor Party in parliament; he was a minister in the government of Gough Whitlam, and later became Leader of the Opposition, narrowly losing the 1980 federal election to the...
, led a federal intervention in Queensland, and Beattie became Queensland State Secretary. Eight years later, Wayne Goss
Wayne Goss
Wayne Keith Goss was Premier of Queensland from 7 December 1989 until 19 February 1996.-Early life:He was born at Mundubbera, Queensland and educated at Inala High School and the University of Queensland...
became Queensland's first Labor Premier since Vince Gair
Vince Gair
Vincent Clare "Vince" Gair was an Australian politician. He served as Premier of Queensland from 1952 until 1957, when his stormy relations with the trade union movement saw him expelled from the Australian Labor Party. He was elected to the Australian Senate and led the Democratic Labor Party...
in 1957.
Prior to his election to Parliament and in addition to State Secretary, Beattie was a solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
of the Supreme Court of Queensland
Supreme Court of Queensland
The Supreme Court of Queensland, which is based at the Law Courts Complex, is the superior court for the Australian State of Queensland and sits around the middle of the Australian court hierarchy...
and secretary of the Railway Stationmasters' Union.
Early parliamentary career (1989-1996)
At the 1989 election Beattie was elected to the Queensland ParliamentParliament of Queensland
The Parliament of Queensland is the legislature of Queensland, Australia. According to the state's constitution, the Parliament consists of the Queen and the Legislative Assembly. It is the only unicameral state parliament in the country, the upper chamber, the Legislative Council, having been...
as MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Brisbane Central
Electoral district of Brisbane Central
The district of Brisbane Central is an electoral division in the state of Queensland, Australia.As its name suggests, the electorate covers the central portion of Brisbane. It includes the Brisbane central business district as well as the inner suburbs of Bowen Hills, Fortitude Valley, Herston,...
. 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
Crime and Misconduct Commission
The Crime and Misconduct Commission is an independent Queensland Government entity created to combat and reduce the incidence of major crime and to continuously improve the integrity of, and to reduce the incidence of misconduct in, the Queensland public sector. The CMC also has a witness...
), 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
Queensland Health
Queensland Health is the department of the Government of Queensland responsible for operating and administering the public health system of the Australian State of Queensland. It is responsible to the State's Health Minister Geoff Wilson and its Director-General is Tony O'Connell.Queensland Health...
. The following year, however, the Goss government lost office following defeat in the Mundingburra
Electoral district of Mundingburra
The district of Mundingburra is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland.- Overview :The seat is one of four within the Townsville urban area in North Queensland. Significant utilities within the Mundingburra electorate are the Townsville Hospital,...
by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
.
Goss then stood down as ALP leader and Beattie was elected in his stead and thus becoming Opposition Leader.
In his first act as Opposition leader he moved a motion in Parliament that was passed preventing the new Coalition Premier Rob Borbidge from calling an early election due to fears from the ALP that an early election would deliver a substantial majority to the Coalition government and therefore substantial losses for the ALP.
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 WellingtonPeter Wellington
Peter Wellington is an Independent member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, for the Electoral district of Nicklin. Wellington, along with fellow independent Liz Cunningham, briefly held the balance in power following the 1998 state election...
; this saw Beattie become Premier. Later following a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
the Labor Party achieved a majority in its own right.
Beattie traveled 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
Mike Kaiser
Michael Hans "Mike" Kaiser is an Australian politician. He was an Australian Labor Party member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly from 2000 to 2001, representing the electorate of Woodridge...
, 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 was 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
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
and aviation industries to locate in Queensland. In 2003, the Premier was awarded an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
"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
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
".
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-LiberalLiberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
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 BundabergBundaberg, Queensland
Bundaberg is a city in Queensland, Australia. It is part of the Local Government Area of the Bundaberg Region and is a major centre within Queensland's broader Wide Bay-Burnett geographical region...
public hospital after Jayant Patel
Jayant Patel
Jayant Mukundray Patel , referred to as Doctor Death is a surgeon who is at the centre of a 2005 scandal in which he was accused of gross incompetence while working at Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, Australia...
, an India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n-born surgeon who was struck off the register in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for malpractice, performed several botched operations in the hospital, some of which resulted in death, and then fled the country to the US. Amid the controversy, the health minister Gordon Nuttall
Gordon Nuttall
Gordon Richard Nuttall is a former Australian politician who represented Sandgate in the Queensland Parliament from 1992 to 2006....
resigned his portfolio, the Speaker
Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly
The Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly is a member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, elected by the whole Parliament to preside over sittings of the Assembly and to maintain orderly proceedings. The Speaker is supported in his role by officers of the Parliamentary Service,...
, Ray Hollis
Ray Hollis
Raymond Keith "Ray" Hollis is a former Australian politician. Born in London, England, he migrated to Australia in 1962 as a merchant seaman and worked in a variety of occupations, including a railway worker, cook, paper mill operator, insurance salesman and a position with the Victorian...
, resigned after controversy associated with his use of Parliamentary expenditure, and the Deputy Premier and Treasurer, Terry Mackenroth
Terry Mackenroth
Terence Michael "Terry" Mackenroth is a former Queensland Australian Labor Party politician, serving almost 28 years with a notable parliamentary service history and a number of ministerial roles including Treasurer and Deputy Premier....
, retired, forcing by-elections in the safe Labor seats of Redcliffe
Electoral district of Redcliffe
The district of Redcliffe is a Queensland Legislative Assembly electoral division in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.The division encompasses suburbs to the north and northeast of Brisbane, including Redcliffe, Woody Point, Scarborough, Clontarf and Margate, as well as parts of Kippa-Ring...
and Chatsworth
Electoral district of Chatsworth
The district of Chatsworth is an electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of Queensland. The electorate is centred on the south-eastern suburbs of Brisbane and stretches north to Tingalpa, west to Carina Heights, east to Tingalpa Creek and south to Bulimba...
on 20 August. The ALP
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
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
Newspoll
Newspoll Market Research is an Australian company providing opinion polling and other market research services. Its chief executive is Martin O'Shannessy.Newspoll's surveys of voter opinion are published in The Australian....
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
Bob Carr
Robert John "Bob" Carr , Australian statesman, was Premier of New South Wales from 4 April 1995 to 3 August 2005. He holds the record for the longest continuous service as premier of NSW...
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. CoalitionCoalition
A coalition is a pact or treaty among individuals or groups, during which they cooperate in joint action, each in their own self-interest, joining forces together for a common cause. This alliance may be temporary or a matter of convenience. A coalition thus differs from a more formal covenant...
Opposition Leader
Opposition (parliamentary)
Parliamentary opposition is a form of political opposition to a designated government, particularly in a Westminster-based parliamentary system. Note that this article uses the term government as it is used in Parliamentary systems, i.e. meaning the administration or the cabinet rather than the state...
Lawrence Springborg
Lawrence Springborg
Lawrence James Springborg is an Australian politician and became Deputy Leader of the Opposition in Queensland since 2 April 2009. He was deputy leader of the new Liberal National Party...
stepped down. Before the election Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
Leader Bob Quinn
Bob Quinn (Australian politician)
Robert Joseph Quinn is an Australian Liberal Party politician in the Queensland parliament. He was leader of the Queensland Liberal Party from 2001 until being ousted on 7 August 2006 by Bruce Flegg....
was forced by his party colleagues to step down a fortnight before polling day. The campaign of Quinn's replacement Dr Bruce Flegg
Bruce Flegg
Dr Bruce Flegg is the Queensland Shadow Ministerfor Education, Training and Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Partnerships and the Member for Moggill having been elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2006 and 2009....
was characterized by inexperience and indecisiveness and lacked an organised, professional approach. 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
Neville Wran
Neville Kenneth Wran, AC, CNZM, QC was the Premier of New South Wales from 1976 until 1986. He was National President of the Australian Labor Party from 1980 to 1986 and Chairman of both the Lionel Murphy Foundation and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation from 1986...
, NSW Labor Premier from 1976 to 1986, to do so and is Queensland's fourth longest serving Premier after Labor's William Forgan Smith
William Forgan Smith
William Forgan Smith , generally known as Forgan Smith, was Premier of the Australian state of Queensland from 1932 to 1942. He came to dominate politics in the state during the 1930s, and his populism, firm leadership, defence of states' rights and interest in state development make him something...
(1932–1942), the Country Party's Frank Nicklin
Frank Nicklin
Sir George Francis Reuben Nicklin, KCMG, MM was Premier of the Australian state of Queensland from 1957 to 1968, and the first Country Party Premier since 1932.-Early life and career:...
(1957–1968) and National Party Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Joh Bjelke-Petersen
Sir Johannes "Joh" Bjelke-Petersen, KCMG , was an Australian politician. He was the longest-serving and longest-lived Premier of Queensland, holding office from 1968 to 1987, a period that saw considerable economic development in the state...
(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. The Labor caucus elected Anna BlighAnna Bligh
Anna Maria Bligh is an Australian politician and the Premier of Queensland since 2007. The 2009 Queensland state election was the first time a female-led political party won or retained state or federal government in Australia...
as its leader on 12 September. In 2009, Anna Bligh led her party to a state election victory, thereby becoming the first Australian female to be popularly elected as a state premier.
He officially stood down as the Member for Brisbane Central on 14 September 2007. Beattie currently serves as Queensland's Trade Commissioner to North and South America, and is based in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, a position he was appointed to by Anna Bligh in March 2008 after previously stating that he would not accept a federal or state government role.
In late May 2010 Beattie announced that he was retiring early from his position as Queensland's Los Angeles-based trade and investment commissioner. In June 2010 it was announced that he had accepted a position with Clemson University
Clemson University
Clemson University is an American public, coeducational, land-grant, sea-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States....
in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
. On 24 August 2011, the Gillard Government
Gillard Government
The Gillard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia, which is led by the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard became Prime Minister on the 24th of June 2010 after challenging her predecessor, Kevin Rudd for the position of leader of the parliamentary...
appointed Beattie as Australia's first Resources Sector Supplier Envoy charged with promoting a Buy Australian at Home and Abroad program for supplying products to the Australian resources industry.
Other matters
Beattie's popularity has led to speculation that he would leave Queensland and enter national politics, 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 CanberraCanberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
was "too cold". On announcing his retirement he again ruled out a move to federal politics, saying that he would, politically speaking, disappear.
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. 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" as well as his political successes have led to a love-hate relationship with The Courier-MailThe Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail is a daily newspaper published in Brisbane, Australia. Owned by News Limited, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane's...
, Brisbane's daily newspaper. Columnist Peter Wear
Peter Wear
Peter Wear is a Brisbane-based writer whose columns appear regularly in The Courier-Mail. Wear ran a long-running satire on Queensland politics with the major role played by "President for Life Mbeattie" - a reference to Premier Peter Beattie's longevity in office.Wear also wrote "The Madding of...
, for example, ran a long-running satire on Queensland politics in general with the major role played by "President for Life
President for Life
President for Life is a title assumed by some dictators to remove their term limit, in the hope that their authority, legitimacy, and term will never be disputed....
Mbeattie".
The controversy over the performance of the government-owned electricity supplier Energex
Energex
Energex is an Australian energy company owned by the Queensland Government. It is based in Brisbane and was founded in 1922 as the City Electric Light Co....
during the severe 2003-2004 storm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
season in South East Queensland
South East Queensland
South East Queensland is a region of the state of Queensland in Australia, which contains approximately two-thirds of the state population...
resulted in the characterisation of Beattie as "Power Point Pete" by Courier-Mail cartoonist Sean Leahy
Sean Leahy
Sean Leahy is an Australian cartoonist working for the Courier Mail in Brisbane, Australia. He draws political cartoons for the paper, and also his own comic strip, Beyond the Black Stump, which is distributed in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.-Background:In 1974, Sean Leahy...
, with the location of the drawing's eyes and nose designed to replicate the holes of a power point.
In August 2007 the Beattie government proposed to reduce the number of councils from 154 to 72, which would result in the merger of a number of regional and extra-metropolitan councils into larger Regional Councils. This proved particularly unpopular in the affected regional areas.
Personal
Peter is married to 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.External links
- Official Biography
- Beattie won his fourth term in office, at a state election held on Saturday, 9 September 2006.
- Beattie's Collection: includes medals, photographs and papers This collection is held by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland