That’s a lyric from Pig City, a 4zzz cult classic single released by The Parameters in the lead up to the 1983 Queensland state election.
If you go downtown, just beware
There’s a demonstration in the square
The boys in blue are everywhereSee the blacks in the park
Hear the doors slam, hear the dogs bark
They’re keeping the city safe after darkThe minister for corruption’s working late
He wants a piece of the action in race eight
No SP here, he’s ringing interstateThe blacks at Aurukun have to go
To keep big business on the go
While Joh gets shares in ComalcoWho was the bagman, who was the hit man?
Who were the front men, who were the big men?
In the National scamHello, hello, is that you dear?
What’s that clicking noise I hear?
Walls have eyes and phones have earsGo to a dance to have some fun
Here come the boys with their dogs and their guns
They don’t like punks – run, Johnny, run!Who’s that knocking at the door?
At six am it must be the law!
‘Right, you know what we’re looking for’State of emergency for the ‘Boks
And then to show the workers who’s boss
If you think you’ve got rights, they’re already lostSo you don’t want to know, you’ve heard it before
But if you cop this lot you’ll sure get more
Where to now from ‘84?
It’s a song that Andrew Stafford wisely chose as the title for his book on music and politics in Brisvegas. I think its only web presence is in comments to a post I wrote years ago at Troppo called Dispatch from Johburg. It’s a powerful stimulus to the memory because it completely and faithfully captures how those of us who were in opposition to the Bjelke-Petersen regime in the 80s felt a lot of the time. And not without good reason.
I thought about it just now because I was reading Andrew Bartlett’s post on the feelings his criticism of the Police Union’s current campaign stimulated.
I’ve spoken out publicly about the Palm Island death in custody matter a number of times and have been thinking about how best to respond to the latest round of saber-rattling from the police. I’ve been surprised to find myself continually thinking (or feeling) that publicly criticising the police is not a very safe thing to do. I can only assume this is a sub-conscious hangover from the 1980s, where publicly criticising the police (or the government) was asking for trouble. I am not suggesting I was a significant or important figure in the political activities of the time, but I was close enough to see and hear many examples of people being targeted and intimidated by police (and particularly by the notorious and now defunct Special Branch).
Police verballing of the accused in court cases was widespread and there was always a fear that illegal drugs might be ‘planted’ and then ‘found’ in a raid. Acting in a way that didn’t attract police attention was a natural self-preservation instinct. Of course, this was on top of the direct government intimidation which meant teachers or other public servants suspected of being politically active against the government would find themselves being transferred to remote locations, facing misconduct allegations and the like.
I’m not suggesting this sort of excessive police intimidation still occurs now at anything like that level (although there is undoubtedly still the potential of major career damage, particularly if you’re in the public service or a government funded organisation, if one is seen to be attacking the government). I am just wondering aloud why I might still feel anxiety about publicly criticising the police.
I was one of those people who had a knock on the door at 6am in 1987 from the cops with a warrant under the notorious Drugs Misuse Act 1986. The warrant was in someone else’s name, and they showed only preremptory interest in searching for drugs, but an enormous amount of interest in my political activities and those of my flatmates. They didn’t charge any of us with anything (and we didn’t have any drugs!), but they left us in little doubt that the purpose of their visit was to intimidate, and made it clear that our future careers might be best served by ceasing any opposition to Joh.
Andrew’s quite right to say that the current Police Union campaign is very very odd indeed for those of us with long memories – both because we’re seeing again the police pursue tactics which are designed to intimidate, and to assert that they themselves are above the law, and because of the irony that these tactics include the very street marches the cops themselves savagely repressed.
Andrew’s also spot on when he makes this comparison and draws this conclusion:
Given that I feel an instinctive anxiety about publicly criticising the police, mainly on the basis of experiences 20 years ago when police intimidation and worse towards politically active people and those perceived to be ‘radicals’ was common, it is no surprise that the suspicion and anxiety towards police runs so deep amongst many Indigenous people. Without ignoring some of the good relations and positive stories, they have continually experienced and witnessed things a hundred times worse than I have over a far longer period. Ignoring all this history and the modern day reality, and just asking Indigenous people to ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ is asking them to deny the evidence of many decades and instead put their faith in a few blithe assurances and platitudes from the same institutions who have inflicted such suffering in the past.
The institutions of government in Queensland will need to do something far more concrete and definitive if there is to be a real building of trust over the coming years.
Qld. police union are squealing like stuck pigs because this case could set a dangerous precedent from their point of view, because this is the first time that the likes of SS(senior sargeant)Hurley have been charged with manslaughter after so many Black Deaths in Custody. There’s only so many deaths that can be deemed accidental.
Some coppers go way beyond the corruption of say,Joh’s former police commissioner Terry Lewis, when they give vent to their racism and sadism while hiding, Phil Ruddock style , behind a badge.
We pay police wages and most of of us live within the law. If we don’t, we get pinged. Why should coppers be treated any differently?
Went to the ‘Taking to the Streets’ exhibition last year at the MoB and took this photo of a ‘Pig City’ poster with Russ Hinze (I think) astride a police bike.
While I morally agree with everything said here and at Senator Bartlett’s article, I think that nowadays the police are on the back foot and are not in as strong a position as they must have been even in 1987. Street marches are the tactics of those who feel they are outside the system.
Even Steve at the Pub appears to think that their campaign is going nowhere fast.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/02/02/queensland-police-union-tactics/#comment-344306
And I can’t imagine 1987-era cops demanding cameras in every police station!
It’s interesting that the culture of fear that was spread as a matter of deliberate policy by the police and National Party lasts for such a long time.
Mark, did you, or people you knew in general, have any inkling in 1987 that a smashing defeat for the National Party/corrupt police power structure was just a couple of years away?
For my own part, I recall that by late ’87 the government had literally collapsed. There was mayhem in the Nats, with Joh avoiding being replaced as leader only because he refused to convene a Party Room meeting. The management committee of the party ended up removing him and appointing Ahern, but Joh refused to resign as premier for a week. With Joh’s cult of personality gone, it suddenly seemed like anything was possible.
Yes, and his final exit was gratifyingly humiliating too.
Once he’d lost Nationals support, he first tried to stitch up a desperate deal with the ALP, who laughed in the corrupt old coot’s face.
Then he tried getting Her Madge onboard to retain the Premiership. Naturally, she declined.
Desperate bunker exercise, then the fall.
One funny footnote: Once Goss was installed in 89, a great trick was getting access to your own special branch file, and circulating it at parties.
Several lefties were rather depressed to discover they didnt have one.
From the moment “The Moonlight State” hit the screen, it was clear to me that a change of government was immenent in Qld.
It was difficult to imagine what life would be like without Joh, he had been around so long his presence was an institution. An atmosphere of uncertainty, excitment and awareness built up in the (20 odd?) months between that moment and the election, as we observed history unfold, albiet unfold quite slowly.
Yes, me too. Watching that program suddenly made it clear that the dam could break. steve sums up the subsequent atmosphere well.
The trouble was that with the electoral malapportionment, the National Party of that era, could rule with the help of a weak compliant Liberal Party with less than 20% of the vote. Electorates in Brisbane would have about 30,000 voters and country ones about 4,000. So basically the SE Corner was seriously disadvantaged with few MP’s elected but more people living here.
Labor at the time were a hopeless outfit that had the anti midas touch much as is the case for conservatives now. They opposed only under duress and the real opposition was in the streets where mass arrests of almost 500 people were commonplace. Police would arrive from Dalby to Bundaberg,amd both coasts to bash and detain demonstrators.
4zzz began broadcasting about the time of the Whitlam dismissal and mustered people together whenever the outrageous acts like the destruction of the Belview Hotel occurred. The Deen brothers came to the demo under police escort ,legs dangling over the side of lowloaders and near died with fright when they saw almost 10,000 people gathered there.
The old Communist Party headquarters where 4zzz now is was bombed and the building still has structural damage from the blast. The police of course still have found nobody to charge. The band “The Saints” used to have to practice at the CPA (now 4zzz) basement because the police would harrass them whever they set up to practice.
A ludicrous era in Queensland history but it taught us never to believe the rhetoric of the police culture. To see how great the Courier Mail was in that era go to a library andd check out how closely knit the paper was with the National Party. I near spewed when the paper come out on the weekend after it was announced that Bionkers -Peterson was to be knighted. Sychophants of the world had united.
“Once he’d lost Nationals support, he first tried to stitch up a desperate deal with the ALP, who laughed in the corrupt old coot’s face.”
God, I remember watching Peter Beattie, the then State Secretary of the ALP, acting in a dramatisation of the negotiations on State Affair (or Today Tonight?) back in the day. I’m not entirely sure they didn’t reach some sort of deal. I remember Joh wanting Parliamentary support in the event of a confindence vote (“You can have anything except an election”) and Beattie saying Joh’s leadership was an electoral asset to the ALP. It never came to that in the end, but they were mad, crazy times.
If I had time on my hands I’d find a copy and put it on YouTube.
Hmm thinking of those days turns my mind turn to the big ‘what if’ of modern Qld politics: ‘How different would things have been if Denis Murphy hadn’t died?’ (and related to that, is unexpected death a particularly Qld Labor curse? Murphy, Ryan and Milliner come to mind. That seem more that our fair share.)
d
As an aside, “The Parameters” is a *great* name for a band (did they ever do Meters covers?), and “The phones have ears” is a beautifully tight bit of satiric-songwriting craftsmanship. (I actually think the phrase is even stronger without the parallel of “the walls have eyes,” but that’s just me…)
j_p_z – I’m pretty sure they didn’t do covers of anything.
And Mark, you’ve forgotten all the “Pig City” bits that from memory are peppered throughout the verses! The bits that everyone could sing along to (in a manner of speaking probably more like scream). Mind you that would probably make it scan even worse.
On a slightly more modern note, there is a great interview between journalists and the Police on the Cybernana Riot Day CD put out by 4ZZZ from the era when the Nationals beat Goss and it didn’t take the police union long to begin their dirty tricks campaign.
By the time the Cybernana 4ZZZ Market Day arrived on October 19 1996 with riot police, horses and the army all involved in creating mayhem, journalists were in no mood to cop the rubbish that the Police and National Party served up and the Press conference the following Monday morning with all the stupidities of the Queensland Police Union in full flight is preserved forever.
The way the Nationals vote is dissolving now means that I will, in all likelihood never see another National Party dominated government in Queensland as long as I live despite Flegg promising me last week that I would.
He really needs to get a grip on himself, where was he and what was he doing when all this Queensland history was being created by the Nationals and the Police Union? The Nationals and the Police Union have had too many chances but always prove themselves incapable of civilised behaviour.
I think the Parameters were a one song show, j_p_z.
Angharad, yeah, I remember that, but I transcribed the lyrics from Andrew’s book, and that’s what was in there. Does anyone have a copy of the single? It’d be great to digitise it. I guess zzz probably would…
“… the destruction of the Belview Hotel occurred.”
I assume you mean the Bellevue Hotel. Demolishing that wonderful old palace was very bad. And then they illegally ripped down Cloudland one night. That was really terrible. Generations were conceived there, grew up there, partied on there and then conceived other generations there. Not to mention I had one of the best fucks of my life in a dim corner of an second floor Cloudland balcony while Mental As Anything were belting out “Just Like Romeo And Juliet” downstairs.
And the utter stupidity of this vandalism from Joh and co’s POV is that a refurbished Bellevue Hotel and Cloudland would now be generating far more state tax revenue and jobs than the gimcrack developments that replaced them.
I was at that concert Nabakov! I’ll never be able to think of it the same way again. No wonder Joh got Cloudland demolished, with such debauchery afoot.
I’ve got a copy of the single Mark – on some strange round black material with a big long groove in it. The b-side is titled Material Possessions. As far as I know that was their only recordings.
It’s also on the ‘Behind the Banana Curtain’ compilation CD put out by ZZZ in 2000.
Oops sorry Nabakov,was too tired to be bothered going and having a look at a titled sketch of the Bellevue I have in the next room.
I definitely saw the Parameters play Boundary St festival in 1996; on some brief comeback gig. So, evidently they had one set of material, at least.
Oh, boy, rhose were the days, I would absolutely LOVe to get my hands on the video clip for this song, do you remember it? A bunch of barge – arsed coppers waddling down the then HQ Makerston St, shot from behind with a handycam… Funny as hell. Then just a coupl-a-years later, we had Victoria Brazil… (Not that anyone I knew would have HAD her per se, but a mate of mine ended up on TV when we stormed the UQ SU offices & he plunked himself down in her chair & declared himself the new Fuhrer. Ah, the good old days… DM Act etc notwithstanding a fun time to be alive.. Anyone else remember the song “Iwas being verballed, I was being Framed”?