Feeding the chooks: a selection of well-known sayings of former Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen

‘The greatest thing that could happen in Queensland and the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquility’.

Response to a question about possible leaks of government business during his use of a mobile telephone: ‘I always talk in a way they can’t understand!’

‘You don’t tell the frogs anything before you drain the swamp’.

‘Don’t put one foot on the sticky paper because pretty soon you will end up with two feet stuck.’

‘There are more ways of killing a cat than drowning it. Different occasions warrant different methods of annihilating a socialist government’.

‘You can’t sit on a fence, a barbed wire fence at that, and have one ear to the ground.’

‘I love it here with John. It is real pioneering stuff … carving a viable living out of virgin land. That is my one real regret about politics – I do not have enough time to spend with my family doing the things we like doing. It is my idea of relaxing- working on big machinery - or flying’.