Lappeman: Wayne Goss’s election transformed drab Queensland into the Pleasantville state

THE election of the Goss government brought about Queensland’s undeniable coming of age and transformed the town from black-and-white to colour.

Goss reform revealed technicolour Qld

WHEN I think of Queensland in the late 1980s, I think of the movie Pleasantville in which the town transforms from black and white to colour as the people cast off repressive attitudes and flourish.

The themes of that movie have a lot in common with Queensland’s coming of age — the election of the Goss government. This was one of many coming of ages the state apparently has had in the past few decades but undeniably the original.

Or is it comings of age?

Anyway, in the movie, personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression and colour represents the transformation from that repression to enlightenment.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

My memories of Queensland in the ’80s are mostly in black and grey although that might have something to do with the “goth” clothes and hairstyle I favoured back then.

But the election of Wayne Goss and Labor in 1989 truly was a pivotal moment in history for a state that had been beaten into submission by corrupt police and the self-serving and hypocritical morality of a bunch of grumpy, greedy old men in power.

Brisbane really was just a large country town, conservative, slow-moving and over-regulated but seething with a scary underbelly that would have made a terrific television miniseries if the characters had not all been so ugly.

Doing well in Queensland was all about who you knew, not what you knew or did.

Education was frowned upon, young people were harassed, and anyone who did not resemble a constipated Young Nat was persecuted until they fled the state.

When it was my turn to flee the state I was amazed at the difference in the way people, particularly young’uns, lived elsewhere.

Down south there was no constant fear of being raided or harassed by police on the street; there were numerous entertainment venues which were not in danger of being closed down at any moment and political protest was not forbidden.

No wonder Queenslanders were the butt of every comedian’s jokes.

And derision was pretty much the only reference to Queensland down south.

The state was largely forgotten or ignored by the rest of the country unless Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was announcing he was running for prime minister or something.

When I came back to Queensland, everything was suddenly in technicolour.

From reforming the police force and implementing the Fitzgerald Inquiry recommendations to decriminalising homosexuality and championing the environment, Goss made major changes to the state.

The Goss Government had implemented the Fitzgerald Inquiry recommendations, cleaned out the police “force” and reformed the unfair electoral system that had kept those grumpy old men in power for so long.

Homosexuality was decriminalised, arts and the environment were recognised as being forces of good, not evil, and numerous other social policies and modernisations were introduced.

Of course it didn’t take long for the excitement from all that change to wear off and self-absorption to take hold once again.

Whining about how at least Sir Joh pulled those electrical strikers into line became prevalent while Goss’s unflinching attitude was seen as arrogant.

Ultimately it was plans to build another much-needed highway from Brisbane to the Gold Coast — through a koala habitat — that ended Wayne Goss’s premiership.

Ironic given Labor had introduced environmental reforms after the Coalition and its cronies had rampaged through the state, slashing and burning in the name of development for decades.

The whining rose to a fever pitch over the koalas and saw Labor lose several seats in 1995, leaving the government with a one-seat majority which it lost after the Mundingburra by-election the following year.

So, plans for a new super-duper highway were trashed and the existing highway was just upgraded. And hasn’t that worked out well.

Personally, my encounters with Mr Goss were less than colourful.

At any momentous political occasion, my editor would invariably order me to get comment from former premiers Sir Joh and/or Wayne Goss.

Sir Joh was easy; he’d always answer his own home phone and give a chatty response to any question.

For the more elusive Wayne Goss I’d usually have to “doorstop” him at some function.

And invariably, he would look at me like I was stupid and answer: “I’m not going to comment on that.”