AustLit

'Writing political biography almost always involves a degree of self-exploration: there is a little bit of autobiography lurking beneath the surface of every biography. To begin with, there is the choice of subject. Some biographers are drawn to personalities they admire while others tackle those they have little regard for but consider important or perhaps want to understand. Choosing a subject must involve reflection on the biographer’s part about the reasons for their choice and also about the nature of the feelings they bring to the task. This reflection is essential if a biography is to be other than hagiography or a hatchet job. In my own choice of subject, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, I was driven by a desire to understand the community in which I had lived most of my life and which had played a large part in my own political socialisation. Bjelke-Petersen was a man who had both shaped that community and been shaped by it. In growing up in provincial Queensland I had become acquainted with many of Bjelke-Petersen’s men and women who in many respects were kindly churchgoers, yet who would think nothing of rorting their tax or doing slippery business deals. They always puzzled me, as Bjelke-Petersen did — that combination of rectitude and shady dealings.' (Introduction)