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Senator Bob Brown, The Australian Greens
The Climate Groups March - 13 June 2009
State Library Victoria
The rally: 'Look at the forests, his (Prime Minister Rudd's) target is 5% (reduction in greenhouse emissions). End the destruction of Australia's native forests and woodlands, from the Tiwi Islands to Tasmania, and including the huge destruction of forests here in the garden state of Victoria. For no need! Woodchips to Japan! Stop that Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull and you will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15-20%.'
I do want Bob Brown for President, or whatever we may call the leader of this country when we have severed ourselves from the Queen's apron strings. Frankly, I have never seen anybody else quite fitting the bill.
Sure, I was elated when John Howard was defeated in the last election and, most sweetly, trampled on by the darling Maxine McKew. While Tin-Tin Kevin Rudd looks a sprightly boy compare to the grumpy last century badly track-suited Howard, the only politician that cranks my enthusiasm is Brown.
The rally: 'But the polluters, the biggest polluters in the country many of them owned (by companies) outside the country, who make billions out of this nation's natural resources will get $16 billion in compensation from your pockets. That is $16 billion that should be going to green power, renewable energy, geo thermal, clean efficient public transport, instead of more tollways and destroying and upsetting neighbourhoods, but in particular impacting on this planet in a way that we can never undo.'
I was too young and wasn't listening to his part in saving the Franklin River in 1982/3, though I have a picture in my memory of the soon-to-be-elected Prime Minister Bob Hawke standing amongst the protestors by the river. At the time it smelt like Hawke was cashing in on somebody else's party. Hawke's election to Government secured the River from being dammed in more ways than one.
The rally: 'So here's the rub, it is up to us, nobody will be able to come back and do it. This is a crisis for all of humanity, and we here in Australian are best placed to meet it. There will be those who say to get into incrementalism, support 5% then maybe something better will happen later - no it won't! That blocks real action for a decade to come.'
Bob and his focus on humane issues as well as green issues have always struck a cord of truth for me. His initiatives supporting freedom of speech, death with dignity, lowering parliamentary salaries, gay law reform, banning of the battery hen industry, a nuclear free Tasmania - all seem just plain sensible ideas to me. Unfortunately his attempts are not always successful, like the banning of semi-automatic weapons in 1987, which was defeated seven years before the Port Arthur massacre.
The rally: 'Our job is to say to the government, we will not support your failed prescription to block proper action which is reasonable, economically wise and job creating, which will put the smile on the face of this nation as it leads the world to rescue this planet for all those who come after us.'
It will be six years since his stand in Parliament caused a unprecedented uproar and had me on my feet cheering. In 2003 the American President George Bush came to Australia and, as part of his tour, included an address to the Parliament. Through Howard's reign he had found his strength in following American foreign policy, which meant we were part of the Iraq War. This pre-emptive war was a blatant grab for oil, masked by the September 11 attacks on America's Twin Towers. In the all-consuming grief of such a horrendous act, the US Government took the opportunity to secure their access to oil by blaming firstly Afghanistan and then Iraq. Please don't start me on the 'weapons of mass destruction'. In the confusion of the terrorist act on New York, anybody who dared to question Australia's involvement in the war was seen an un-Australian. So, when Bush mentioned the war in his address to Parliament, Bob stood and said, 'Mr Bush, this is Australia. Respect our nation. Return our Australians from Guantanamo Bay. Respect the laws of the world and the world will respect you.'
Luckily these words are available to read now, because his single defiant act was all I saw. Somebody was taking on the truth and standing up to those who would brook no dissent. Finally and unashamedly, somebody had dissented. Bob had. History will look poorly on both Howard and Bush as puppets of energy corporations and the derailers of action on climate change.
The rally: 'That is our mission (to rescue this planet for all those who come after us) and we will settle for nothing less.'
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