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Confident Queensland: the Beattie legacy

Crikey / Monday, 10 September 2007

Peter Beattie was a cunning political survivor who cut his teeth in the Bjelke-Peterson era of semi-democracy and rose through the ranks of the centrist ALP Unity faction as a tough campaigner and political operative. His legacy will be a newly confident Queensland that threw off its “deep north” image in favour of a dynamic and increasingly sophisticated sunbelt economy - but one which is beginning to struggle with growth pains.