Australian Left Review
Article Title
Review : The Red North - The Popular Front in North Queensland by Diane Menghetti
Abstract
In the popular imagination the state of Queensland is now the "Deep North". It is regarded by many "southerners" as a bastion of provincialism and unswerving reaction where antipathy towards leftist or even liberal viewpoints becomes more pronounced as one heads into the Tropics. It appears as if it's always been so. Like all mythologies, this view of Queensland has a certain basis in reality. The Bjelke-Petersen government is reactionary and it actively fosters a nasty type of provincialism whose primary function is to disguise its sell-out to transnational capital. Some, perhaps quite a few, Queenslanders, also share the government's views. But the pervasiveness of this mythology also rests on prejudice and a widespread ignorance of Queensland history.