AustLit

'A journey is not just marked by things. It is marked by our lived experience. My story is informed by my lived experience of the National Party government of Joh Bjelke-Petersen who became Premier of Queensland in 1968. The Queensland State parliament administers an area greater than Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined and to travel its length is to travel the distance from London to St. Petersburg. Bjelke-Petersen’s administration menaced us, threatened us and metaphorically acted like a crop duster, flying low whilst disgorging its contents. We expected to be showered with superphosphate. Instead, we were showered with something more akin to an organophosphate that had been stockpiled since the Cold War. Wherever it came from, we knew we were going to suffer. We were in for the fight of our lives: “don’t you worry about that.”' (Introduction)