Avid Reader in Brisbane, which will not stock the book, has refrained from stocking titles in the past, including The Fountainhead and Mein Kampf

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Campbell Newman, the former Queensland premier, has labelled bookstores who refuse to stock his authorised biography as anti-democratic and anti-free speech.

Can Do: Campbell Newman and the Challenge of Reform, written by former Liberal National party MP Gavin King, was officially launched on Monday but some book stores are refusing to stock it.

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It is understood at least two independent bookstores in Brisbane will not stock it, with Fiona Stager from Avid Reader citing Newman’s decision to scrap the premier’s literary awards as one of the reasons.

“We saw that as an attack on the writing, editing, book-publishing, book-selling community in Queensland. It seemed ironic that the first thing he did after losing was to turn around [and] be involved in the publication of a book,” she told 612 ABC Brisbane.

“A lot of my customers lost their jobs. They either worked in government or organisations which were defunded. It had a big impact on my first Christmas. Booksellers have a long memory.”

Stager said other books the store has refused to stock in the past 18 years were The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan and Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, Mein Kampf.

King told the launch that five or six shops across Australia had refused to stock the book.

“It’s anti-free speech, it’s anti-democratic,” Newman said.

In the book Newman says he regrets the decision to scrap the premier’s literary awards, but that it was the right decision.

“That was a bad political decision, which I have to take responsibility for. I don’t think it actually hurt us at all at that time out in the general population, most people didn’t give two hoots about a literary prize, but the left did,” he says.

“It became emblematic of us as a government, it was one of those important causes to the left in the community who chatter and carry on and network, it was like a rallying flag for them.”

Newman used the launch of his book, held at gentlemen’s private membership club Tattersall’s, to hit out at Tony Fitzgerald, who chaired the 1980s inquiry into police corruption.

Fitzgerald criticised Newman and his government’s policies throughout their term after spending about two decades refusing to comment on political matters.

“We were accused of a range of things by Mr Fitzgerald,” Newman said.

But he said Fitzgerald “has been absolutely silent” on a range of controversies surrounding current premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government, including the fact that she did not attend some budget estimates and the reduction of the number of parliamentary sittings.

Newman was particularly scathing about a lack of reaction over embattled police minister Jo-Ann Miller’s perceived mistakes.



“We’ve got a police minister who arguably should have stood down under the Westminster system some time ago,” he said.

“So there’s a few examples – you could mount the same negative campaign against individuals that exist in the state government today.”

Newman criticised the media heavily in the book, at one point being quoted as referring to them as a “pack of bastards”.