Nationals premier Mike Ahern faced an uphill battle to begin to reform Queensland amid the turmoil following the Bjelke-Petersen government and corruption uncovered during the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
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The details have been revealed in the cabinet minutes from 1988, which can now be released after 30 years.
Mr Ahern's cabinet made 2524 decisions in 1988, with the man at the helm sometimes receiving a chilly reception as he set in motion his commitment to implement the Fitzgerald Inquiry's recommendations "lock, stock and barrel" before they were delivered the following year.
Speaking to journalists last month, Mr Ahern humbly described his actions as premier as simply "part of what was mine to do".
"I put them [decisions] very often to the cabinet and they were all looking at me silently, not liking it, but these things had to be done," he said.
"And they were necessary to be done as soon as possible and they were put in place there as a starting place, for a genuine reform process to start to take place to deliver a community here that could trust their government."
The cabinet papers detail how the Ahern government decided to stop paying legal costs at the Fitzgerald Inquiry for former assistant commissioner Tony Murphy, who coined the phrase "the joke" to describe the system of corruption in the police force.
Suspended police commissioner Terry Lewis reached the retirement age of 60 years in 1988 and sought to retire, with his full superannuation benefits, while the inquiry was ongoing.
Cabinet refused, passing legislation to ensure he could not retire and then stopped him from finding another job while suspended. Mr Lewis was later sentenced to 14 years' jail for corruption.
Mr Ahern's cabinet made several reforms, including creating a foreign land interests register, public accounts committee, public works committee and moving the police complaints tribunal from the Police Department to the Justice Department to stop the police from investigating themselves.
That paved the way for the Criminal Justice Commission, which has since morphed into the Crime and Corruption Commission.
Mr Ahern held his ministers to account by tabling their ministerial expenses in Parliament where they could be scrutinised.
Greater scrutiny led to ministers Brian Austin, Leisha Harvey, Don Lane and Geoff Muntz being sentenced to jail for misappropriating public money.
During the year, commissioner Tony Fitzgerald sought an expansion of his terms of reference and the power to appoint assistant commissioners, which were granted, along with a special prosecutor.
"Tony Fitzgerald came to me and he said, 'listen, this started out as a police inquiry, and now I've found that a number of key players who are clearly involved in corruption are telling us that 'I'm not a policeman, you can't say anything about me and I won't appear if you summon me to appear'," Mr Ahern said.
Mr Ahern said he knew it would be difficult to get through cabinet and the party machine, which was "groaning through all of this".
"So I decided to take it to the cabinet as the lone ranger," he said.
"And I say, you can either do this and get it done or you can leave it for a month and let the press kick us around for a month and then do it."
Mr Ahern said he received support from former deputy premier Bill Gunn and attorney-general Nev Harper.
"There was no written submission because that would flag it to all and sundry. I took it up verbally. So I said, good, I'll call him [Mr Fitzgerald] after lunch and tell him he's got it," he said.
Despite achieving significant reforms, Mr Ahern was overthrown by his own party just two months before the 1989 election, which the Russell Cooper-led Nationals lost to Wayne Goss and Labor.
Mr Ahern was premier for less than one year and 10 months. He said he had no regrets from his short time as premier.
"I did what was mine to do, and I knew that things were stirring, but the reality is that in life you get given to do some things and you get on and do them," he said.
"I think it was a year of necessary change. But my ego and the egos of others, in my view, are not important."
Digital Technology Minister Mick de Brenni said Mr Ahern took the helm as premier in "extraordinarily difficult" circumstances when the Fitzgerald Inquiry was in full swing.
"As the Fitzgerald inquiry revealed what can only be described as damning allegations of corruption, Mr Ahern became a leader of a government that had lost a lot of trust with Queenslanders," he said.
Mr de Brenni said some "graphically disturbing content" was not included in the release of cabinet papers on New Year's Day 2019.
"In addition to that, any content related to the reopened Whisky Au Go Go inquest has also been removed so as to not unduly interfere or influence the inquiry announced just recently by the Attorney-General [Yvette D'Ath]," he said.
Boggo Road Prison was a powderkeg
There was discontent and threats of strike action among prison guards, and after guards shot a prisoner during a riot in February, prisoners began a hunger strike, with five taking to the roof with protest signs made from bed sheets.
Solicitor Anthony Marinac, who compiled an overview of the cabinet documents, said visits were not regular and prisoners in one block were using buckets instead of toilets overnight because there was no plumbing to cells.
"It was positively ancient," he said.
New minister Russell Cooper announced the Kennedy prison review, which was scathing of the department and prison service, with cabinet approving legislation to address some of the issues.
The notorious "black hole" isolation cell under the oval was closed.
"There was probably widespread agreement among both the guards and the prisoners that the prisons were overcrowded and that they were old and fairly unsavoury places to work," Mr Marinac said.
"The real point of contention came over the allegations of prison officer corruption, that prison officers were identified as the primary means by which drugs were getting into the prisons and the prison officers and their unions responded fairly aggressively to that notion."
Late in the year, five prisoners escaped from Boggo Road after creating a rope from 70-bed sheets and abseiling down from the side of the jail from the guards' catwalk, with cabinet approving a $10,000 per person reward for information leading to their recapture.
Boggo Road closed in 1989.
