Bob Brown: Green politics

Robert James 'Bob' Brown is a Senator in the federal parliament (representing Tasmania) and is the inaugural parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. He is well-known as a leader and spokesperson in regards to the environment and social justice, and is well known for a progressive approach to issues. Brown made international headlines in October of 2003 when he was ejected from parliament for interjecting during an address by former US president George W. Bush. Brown wished to present Bush with a letter setting out their opposition to the Iraq war and asking for the release of David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, two Australian citizens held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as part of the US 'War on Terror'. Although former president Bush accepted the interjections with good humour, Brown and his Senate colleague Kerry Nettle were ejected and suspended from the parliament for 24 hours for their breach of protocol.

Born in 1944, Brown studied to be a doctor and worked in Canberra and Tasmania as a general practitioner. He soon became involved in the early, unofficial days of Tasmania's environmentalist movement, in particular the campaign to save Lake Pedder. In 1967 the Hydro-Electric Commission proposed to build a power scheme in the south-west of Tasmania which would involve the damming of the Huon and Serpentine Rivers. This in turn meant that Lake Pedder, considered by many to be an area of wilderness worth saving, would be flooded.

The sense that the south-west Tasmania wilderness was a frontier in the environmental battleground (still in its early stages in this period) was felt throughout Australia and even internationally. Lake Pedder supporters started a petition to stop the damming and collected some 10 000 signatures, the largest number ever collected in Tasmania.

The Tasmanian State Labor government was forced by this campaign to establish a committee to look at the viability of the damming proposal and the possibility of alternatives solutions. When the committee passed the proposal and plans to force a referendum in Tasmania failed, the campaigners appealed to the federal government. This too was unsuccessful. The environmentalists found an opportunity to organise themselves officially when the Tasmanian government called an election. Calling a public meeting in the Hobart Town Hall, they formed the United Tasmania Group (UTG), now recognised as the world's first 'green' political party. Bob Brown was an early member of the UTG, which became known as the Tasmanian Greens in the early 1980s. See image 1

Ultimately the Pedder campaign was unsuccessful, and the damming project was completed in 1972 as part of a push by the State government to provide a cheap renewable energy source. Lake Pedder exists now as a completely different lake fed by the dammed rivers. Several species of worm native to the area are claimed to have been made extinct by the damming project. Although unsuccessful, the Lake Pedder campaign set in place a precedent for the successful opposition of the Franklin River Dam project in the early 1980s.

In the 1980s, Brown continued to fight for environmental causes from the front, being appointed director of the Tasmanian Wilderness Society in 1978. In the early 1980s, Brown played a leading role in the campaign to prevent construction of the Franklin Dam, which, like Lake Pedder, would have drowned the Franklin River valley as part of a hydroelectricity project. Campaigners claimed that the damming of the Gordon River would destroy the environment of the Franklin River adjoining the Gordon. The dam proposal was announced in 1978 and over the next five years vigorous debate and protest ensued. In December 1982 the dam site was occupied by protesters, leading to widespread arrests and an increase in media coverage. The dispute became a federal issue the following March, when prevention of the dam was a campaign promise made by the victorious Hawke Labor government.

A legal battle between the federal government and Tasmanian State government followed the Hawke victory. In a landmark High Court decision, it was ruled that the Hawke Government had the power to overrule Tasmania in the Franklin Dam case because Australia was a signatory to a World Heritage agreement, so this issue fell under the Commonwealth's powers over 'external affairs'. Section 51 (xxix) of the Constitution allows the federal government to make laws based on treaties signed with other countries, and thus the federal government could make laws which would overrule the State of Tasmania.

Bob Brown was among the 1500 people arrested while protesting during the Franklin River campaign, and he spent 19 days in Risdon Prison in Hobart. On the day of his release in 1983, Brown was elected into Tasmania's State parliament. At this time the Greens were being urged by Petra Kelly, the leader of the West German Greens to develop a national identity. The Greens organised a national conference at Sydney University in 1986. The diversity of interests and the natural suspicion of the centralisation of power meant that the conference decided against establishing an Australian Greens party, and it was six years later in 1992 that a federal Greens party was formed. Western Australia held out from joining the national federation until 2003.

In his early State parliamentary career Bob Brown introduced a wide range of private members' bills which reflected the policy platform of the Greens. Along with Bills on environmental issues, this included proposals to ban the battery-hen industry, a push for a nuclear-free Tasmania as well as law reform with regard to homosexuality. In 1989 the Greens won 5 out of 35 seats in the Tasmanian Lower House, and Brown became their unofficial leader (at that time, the Greens did not have formal leadership positions). His support of the Labor government collapsed over forestry issues in 1992, and in 1993 he resigned from the House of Assembly and stood unsuccessfully for the federal House of Representatives.

Brown was successfully elected to the federal Senate for Tasmania in 1996, and became known as an outspoken voice in opposition to the policies of the coalition government of John Howard. In particular Brown's focus remained on forestry and environmental issues. He also focused on human rights issues, including international issues such as East Timor and West Papua. He also introduced bills proposing to abolish radioactive waste dumping, to ban mandatory sentencing of Aboriginal children and for stricter controls of greenhouse gases.

At the 2001 federal election Brown was re-elected to the Senate with an increased vote, and continued to argue against the Howard government's policies on asylum seekers, particularly around the Tampa incident where a number of asylum seekers were picked up by a Norwegian freighter. He has also spoken out in opposition to Australia's involvement in the war in Iraq.

In December 2004, Gunns Limited, a forestry and export woodchip company, attempted to sue Brown and others for $6.3 million in the Supreme Court of Victoria. They claimed that Brown, the Greens and several other individuals and corporations had engaged in 'ongoing damaging campaigns and activities' against the company. Specifically, Gunns alleges that these individuals and groups engaged in illegal conduct so as to disrupt logging operations and that they engaged in 'corporate vilification' of the Gunns company. The case has yet to be decided. Brown was formally elected as the first federal Parliamentary Leader of The Greens in November 2005, and is widely seen as the figurehead of the party and of the Australian environmental movement in general.