Mike Ahern – premier of Queensland but not a leader

Mike Ahern, the former Queensland National Party premier (1987-89) sadly passed away last week. Sadness of his passing should not overlook critical assessment of his long time in state politics (1968-1990) and premiership.

Ahern, like Britain's Anthony Eden, had been heir apparent for years before finally gaining the top spot in 1987. And like Eden, in a little over 20 months it was all over, Ahern was replaced, though thankfully in somewhat different circumstances than Eden's.

Ahern was one of those politicians who "had potential" and was the "one to watch" but in the end when he finally got there, like Anthony Eden, the potential was never delivered and the performance was painful to watch.

Ahern won the safe Sunshine Coast regional seat of Landsborough formerly held by the Premier, Frank Nicklin, in a by-election in 1968.

Ahern's rise up the greasy National Party pole of power was slow. He did not fit the then Country Party character. He was not a farmer. His seat was regional and in south-east Queensland. He was one of the few National Party ministers to have a degree, its saving grace was that it was in agricultural science. He was a Catholic in a predominantly Protestant party when those things mattered. And Premier Bjelke-Petersen was not so keen on Ahern.

Nevertheless, Ahern became Deputy Whip in 1972, and supported a parliamentary committee system when Queensland's unicameral legislature had hardly any. He had some modest success in getting some new ones established.

In this advocacy he was not alone. Liberal backbenchers, known as the "Ginger Group" had been agitating for a better parliamentary committee system, before Ahern was on the scene.

Ahern finally gained a ministerial post in 1980 – 12 years after being elected, but it was an important one for any budding National Party politician being the Primary Industry portfolio.

Ahern enjoyed the success and the subsequent ministerial promotions, with the rise and rise of Bjelke-Petersen and the National Party as they slayed the Whitlam Government through questionable Senate appointments, maintained office through Queensland's electoral weightage electoral system, and skewered the Liberals over the Terry White affair in 1983.

Indeed, when fellow cabinet minister, Liberal Terry White, crossed the floor to vote with Liberal backbenchers for a public accounts committee, and was rejected by the Bjelke-Petersen as the new Liberal leader that ended the coalition, Ahern was silent. The Liberals were then decimated at the 1983 and 1986 elections and the Nationals now governed in their own right. Ahern was one of the beneficiaries gaining portfolios of industry, small business, health and environment, some of which would once had been Liberal.

When Ahern finally became premier in December 1987, he made no attempt of rapprochement with the Liberals. Getting the coalition back together might have restored some faith in non-Labor politics and would have possibly stemmed the fallout from forthcoming Fitzgerald Report into corruption.

Ahern had been silent when honest Police Commissioner Ray Whitrod was replaced, by Terry Lewis, later found to be corrupt by the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

Ahern's other claim to fame was his resistance to fundamentalist Christians concerning the Queensland education curriculum. Yet given how our national curriculum has since been so colonised by more extreme ideologies, that success needs to be tempered by closer assessment of what he criticised.

Nor when the crazy 'Joh for Canberra' campaign was underway which destroyed the federal coalition, caused John Howard to lose the 1987 election, and saw outstanding Nationals like Senator Stan Collard sacked for not toeing the Joh line there was hardly a public murmur of dissent from Ahern.

Clearly, throughout his career Ahern like most others in the Nationals had been happy to ride on the coat-tails of Bjelke-Petersen's seeming unlimited political success.

It was only when Joh's electoral magic had clearly faded following his failed "Joh for Canberra" debacle, when the whole party finally turned against Joh, did Ahern act: then, and only then did he at last challenge Joh and seize the glittering prize of premier of Queensland.

Of course, Ahern, now as premier became the inheritor of the Bjelke-Petersen legacy. The glittering prize was about to become a very heavy burden and a faded prize. In particular, it was Ahern who had to deal with the fallout from the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry that had been appointed in 1987 and was released in July 1989 amid intense media and public attention.

Ahern showed no authority, no political nous and no imagination in responding to the report. He had accepted all its recommendations, "lock, stock and barrel" before the report had even been released. When handed the report he looked like a rabbit caught in the lights. Those close to Ahern argued he vacillated and couldn't stick to any agreed strategy on how to handle the Fitzgerald report. At a time when leadership was most needed, it was found wanting with Ahern.

As we saw later with Premier Peter Beattie's handling of the commission of inquiry into the overseas doctors' scandal in 2005, adroit leadership, determination, and sheer gall can reverse a political slide from a public inquiry report.

It was Ahern's seeming helplessness in responding to the Fitzgerald Report that the National Party in sheer terror turned to (some might say turned back to) Russell Cooper, a traditional National Party leader. He relieved Ahern of his premiership in September 1989. The Nationals still lost badly in 1989 but governments have had worse results than the Nationals at that election.

Mourn for Mike Ahern – of course we must.

He was a decent man. And in normal political times would have been regarded as one of the better ministers who graced the Queensland government frontbench. But politics, and especially Queensland politics, is never normal, is it? Leadership involves a rare combination of skills – knowledge, courage, timing, and the willingness to stand alone – in other words to lead. It is far more than just being a good minister which is largely about being administratively competent to succeed.

While Anthony Eden resigned in disgrace having lied to parliament an abject failure following the Suez debacle, with Ahern it was just failure. Events, not directly of his making, overwhelmed him. Ahern was the kind of politician who meant well but did not know how to put that into practical policy or convincing politics.