Peter Beattie
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Peter Douglas Beattie (born November 18, 1952), Australian politician, is the Premier of the Australian State of Queensland and leader of the Australian Labor Party in that state. His sweeping victory in the February 7 2004 state election made him one of the most successful politicians in Australia.
Beattie was born in Sydney, the youngest of seven children, but 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 teenaged children.
After Beattie moved to Brisbane, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Queensland, earned a master of arts degree from Queensland University of Technology, and then entered the practise of law. 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, called the 'Old Guard.' 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.
At the 1989 election Beattie was elected to the Queensland Parliament as MP for Brisbane Central. But Goss regarded him as a potential rival for the Labor leadership and he did not support him for election to the ministry by the Labor caucus during Labor's first two terms in office. Following Goss' near defeat at the 1995 election, however, Beattie was finally promoted, becoming Health Minister. The following year, however, the Goss Government lost office following defeat in a vital by-election.
Goss then resigned as Labor Leader, and Beattie became Opposition Leader on February 19, 1996. He led the opposition to the National Party government of Rob Borbidge until the 1998 election, when Labor won 44 seats out of 89 and succeeded in forming a minority government with the support of an independent MP.
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 background as an urban machine politician, won 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, a former State Secretary 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 popularity naturally 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 resisted such suggestions, saying that he loved Queensland too much to leave, and anyway Canberra was too cold. Some southern commentators doubted that Beattie's parochial style of politics would succeed on the national stage.
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 February 7 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.
Beattie released his autobiography "Making A Difference" in May, 2005, in which he has described his upbringing, political life and his views on key issues, including health, education and social reform. The book is part memoir, part manifesto, and is interesting and easy to read. 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.
| Preceded by: Rob Borbidge | Premier of Queensland 1998–present | Succeeded by: (incumbent) |