Mike Ahern (Australian politician) Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

In 2010, Ahern was a recipient of the Queensland Greats Awards.

In 2007 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) “for service to the Queensland Parliament, to economic and trade development through fostering primary production and international relationships, and to the community through technological, medical research, educational and charitable organisations”.

Ahern is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. He has served as chairman of the Australian Liver Foundation, a member of the board of governors of the ATSE Clunies Ross Foundation, also a member of the board of governors of the Queensland Community Foundation and has been appointed special representative of the Queensland Government for Africa, The Middle East and India. He was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001.

The publication of the results of the Fitzgerald Inquiry in 1989 were seriously damaging to the Nationals, and all but negated Ahern’s efforts to rehabilitate the government’s image and distance the party from his now-detested predecessor. A Newspoll released after the inquiry came out showed that the Ahern government had only 22 percent support—the lowest ever recorded at the time for a state government in Australia. The damage was magnified by the fact that the Nationals faced a statutory general election that year, and polls showed Labor having its best chance in years of winning government. Indeed, if the result of the Newspoll had been repeated in an election, the Nationals would have been defeated in a landslide. Although Ahern was not implicated in any form of corruption, hardline Bjelke-Petersen supporters blamed him for his alleged weakness and vacillation in allowing the crisis to engulf the National Party. On 25 September 1989, Police Minister Russell Cooper, a National Party traditionalist, successfully challenged Ahern for the leadership. The Nationals lost the election just two months later, ending 32 years of continuous National Party government. Ahern resigned from Parliament six months after the election and proceeded to a successful business career.

Ahern immediately wrote to the Governor, Sir Walter Campbell, seeking to be commissioned as the new premier. This normally would have been a pro forma request since the Nationals had a majority in their own right (as they had since 1983). However, despite not even having nominated for the leadership, Sir Joh insisted he was still premier. While it seemed that Campbell was bound by convention to appoint Ahern, he refused to terminate Bjelke-Petersen’s commission until Sir Joh was defeated in the legislature. The situation where Queensland had a “Premier who is not leader” and the National Party a “Leader who is not Premier” only ended after four days when Bjelke-Petersen retired and finally handed the post to Ahern on 1 December. Ahern also held 8 other ministries including Attorney-General on a temporary basis until he could establish his ministry.

By the late 1980s Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s (knighted in 1984) standing as premier had begun to be compromised by the failure of the disastrous “Joh for Canberra” campaign in 1987 and the establishment, against Bjelke-Petersen’s will in 1987, of the Inquiry into Police Corruption and Other Matters led by Tony Fitzgerald QC. Facing internal pressure to resign, in October 1987 Sir Joh announced he would step down in 1988 after hosting Expo ’88.

Despite this, Ahern was chosen as National Party whip in 1972. He lobbied for Queensland to establish a system of parliamentary committees on the model of the Canadian parliament. Facing Bjelke-Petersen’s opposition to such a system, he was successful in seeing established a Subordinate Legislation Committee and a Privileges Committee, the latter of which he became chair.

After being passed over twice for a Cabinet post in the 1970s, Ahern nominated for the vacancy in the Deputy Leadership of the National Party in 1980—a post that de facto carried automatic Cabinet rank. Bjelke-Petersen was not willing to have Ahern as his deputy and potential rival, but could no longer justify keeping him out of the ministry. Sir Joh decided to placate Ahern by offering the portfolio of Minister for Mines while successfully running his own preferred candidate, Vic Sullivan, for Deputy Leader. Other portfolios held by Ahern over the course of his ministerial career were Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Industry, Small Business and Technology, and Minister for Health and Environment. Ahern was significantly younger than most of his Cabinet colleagues, and was one of few members of cabinet with tertiary qualifications.

Ahern went on to study agricultural science at the University of Queensland, afterwards became active in the Young Country Party. He was state president of the Young Country Party in 1967 and national president in 1968, as well as junior vice-president of the Country Party. He took Nicklin as a political mentor. When Nicklin retired in 1968, Ahern nominated to succeed him in his Landsborough electorate, located in the Sunshine Coast. He handily won election to the Legislative Assembly of Queensland in the ensuing by-election, being the youngest Country member of Parliament by nearly twenty years.

In common with most National Party politicians, Ahern had a rural background. His father, Jack Ahern, was active in the Country Party (the former name for the National Party), in Landsborough and was campaign manager for Premier Sir Frank Nicklin. From 1964 to 1967 Jack Ahern was president of the Country Party. Michael Ahern was born in Maleny, Queensland and was educated at Conondale State School and Downlands College (Toowoomba).

Michael John Ahern AO FTSE (born 2 June 1942) is a former Queensland National Party politician who was Premier of Queensland from December 1987 to September 1989. After a long career in the government of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Ahern became his successor amid the controversy caused by the Fitzgerald Inquiry into official corruption. Ahern’s consensus style and political moderation contrasted strongly with Bjelke-Petersen’s leadership, but he could not escape the division and strife caused by his predecessor’s downfall.