Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen will be farewelled at a state funeral in the small Queensland town where she lived, as her family prepares to endure their first Christmas without their matriarch.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's office confirmed on Thursday she and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had agreed to extend the offer of a funeral or memorial service to her family, depending on their wishes.
Son John Bjelke-Petersen thanked the government and said the family would accept a state funeral.
"Mum certainly deserves the recognition by that," he told AAP.
Mr Bjelke-Petersen said the family were working on a date that would suit as many people as possible, but it would be held in the Kingaroy Town Hall, near where she lived for most of her life.
"That's where dad's funeral service was," he said.
Lady Bjelke-Petersen died on Wednesday aged 97 following complications from a fall she suffered a few weeks ago.
While best known for being the wife of long-serving Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and for her pumpkin scones, Lady Flo - as she was affectionately known - also had a 12-year career as a Nationals senator.
Mr Bjelke-Petersen said his mum was a formidable force who raised him and his three sisters while also supporting her husband's political career.
"Everybody, as you travel round, the first question was how mum was," he said.
"It was a sign that through being the wife of a premier and then as a senator, what sort of impact she had made on people."
One of Lady Flo's final wishes was for her controversial husband's tarnished political reputation to be restored, after he was dumped as leader of the Nationals in 1987 after almost 20 years in office amid a corruption scandal.
In 1991, the 80-year-old was charged with perjury arising from his evidence to the Fitzgerald Royal Commission, but a jury was unable to reach a verdict.
Mr Bjelke-Petersen said his father's reputation "is what it is" but said he and his mum knew "the truth".
Rob Borbidge, who served in Sir Joh's government and was premier from 1996 to 1998, said he believed the Bjelke-Petersen legacy was changing.
"I believe that as time goes on, history is being far more generous to Sir Joh and his time in office, than many of the critics at the time would like to believe," he said on Thursday.
Queensland opposition leader Deb Frecklington, whose seat of Nanango was previously held by Sir Joh, described Lady Flo as an "outstanding and much-loved Queenslander".
"Lady Flo was a rock of my community," she said on Thursday.
"Lady Flo once said to me 'your local community is the most important job you will have' and I just hope I can live up to what Lady Flo's words were."
Mr Bjelke-Petersen said her famous pumpkin scones would be kept alive by his wife Karyn, who had taken up cooking the recipe when tourists visited the family property Bethany in Kingaroy.
Sir Joh received a state funeral when he died in 2005, and was buried on the property.
