the Electoral Districts Act 1949, which had established electoral malapportionment in Queensland, which was seen as unfairly benefiting the Nationals. Both the Labor and Liberal parties favoured "one vote one value" electoral reform. On 3 July 1989, the Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (more commonly known as the Fitzgerald Inquiry after its chair, Tony Fitzgerald QC) handed down its report. It found links between criminal and political networks, and that corruption in Queensland's public life was widespread, commonplace and organised. It made numerous recommendations aimed at reforming the police and criminal justice system and at establishing independent institutions to monitor, report and act on reforms in the short term, and their operation on an ongoing basis. Ahern committed to implement the Report in its entirety. Ahern sought to govern in a more consultative manner than Bjelke-Petersen, and worked to blunt the edges of what had long been one of the most unyieldingly conservative state governments in Australia. It was to no avail; by September, opinion polls were suggesting the Nationals had about half the support they had achieved at the 1986 election. A Newspoll taken after the inquiry's release showed that the Nationals had tumbled to only 22% support, the lowest ever recorded for a sitting government in Australian history. Additionally, the Nationals suffered large swings at three by-elections, most recently in Merthyr, where the Liberals had won the seat from the Nationals despite the latter putting forward a high-profile candidate and an expensive campaign. On 22 September, Police Minister Russell Cooper toppled Ahern in a party room coup, and was sworn in as premier three days later. Cooper billed himself as a traditionalist in Bjelke-Petersen's mould, and his supporters believed he could shore up National support in its rural heartland. Accordingly, Cooper campaigned on traditional National focuses (law and order, social conservatism, and attacks on the federal Labor government, in particular related to interest rates) and produced a number of controversial advertisements, one of which alleged that the Labor Opposition's plan to decriminalise homosexuality would lead to a flood of gays from southern states moving to Queensland. Labor responded by satirising these ads, depicting Cooper as a wild-eyed reactionary and a clone of Bjelke-Petersen and/or a puppet of party president Sir Robert Sparkes. Logos Foundation, a fundamentalist Christian group in Toowoomba, led by Howard Carter, controversially involved itself in the election, running a