Coal Seam Gas
Bringing Peace to our Forests
Greens MPs
Bob Brown
Senator for Tasmania
ABOUT BOB BROWN
Keep up to date with Bob on Facebook
Bob Brown, born in 1944, was educated in rural New South Wales, became captain of Blacktown Boys High School in Sydney and graduated in medicine from Sydney University in 1968. He became the Director of the Wilderness Society which organised the blockade of the dam-works on Tasmania’s wild Franklin River in 1982/3. Some 1500 people were arrested and 600 jailed, including Bob Brown who spent 19 days in Risdon Prison. On the day of his release, he was elected as the first Green into Tasmania's Parliament. After federal government intervention, the Franklin River was protected in 1983.
Bob Brown has been a life-long activist. In 1986 he was shot at and assaulted during protests against logging at Tasmania’s Farmhouse Creek. He was arrested and jailed twice in 1995 for demonstrating peacefully to protect Tasmania's Tarkine Wilderness from roading and logging. In 1990 Bob Brown established the Australian Bush Heritage Fund to buy land for conservation. His books include Lake Pedder, Wild Rivers, Tarkine Trails, The Greens, The Valley of the Giants, Tasmania’s Recherche Bay and Memo for a Saner World.
Bob has a house on the Liffey River beneath snowy Drys Bluff in central Tasmania. He enjoys photography, bushwalking, poetry, and philosophy.
POLICIES
As a State MP, Bob Brown introduced a wide range of private member's initiatives, including for freedom of information, death with dignity, lowering parliamentary salaries, gay law reform, banning the battery-hen industry and nuclear free Tasmania. Some succeeded, others not. Regrettably, his 1987 bill to ban semi-automatic guns was voted down by both Liberal and Labor members of the House of Assembly, seven years before the Port Arthur massacre.
In 1989, he led the parliamentary team of five Greens which held the balance of power with the Field Labor Government. The Greens saved 25 schools from closure, instigated the Local Employment Initiatives which created more than 1000 jobs in depressed areas, doubled the size of Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area to 1.4 million hectares, created the Douglas-Apsley National Park and supported tough fiscal measures to recover from the debts of the previous Liberal regime. Bob resigned from the State Parliament in 1993 and Christine Milne took over as leader of the Tasmanian Greens.
Bob was a driving force in forming the Australian Greens in 1992. He has travelled extensively, fostering Green politics and forming close links with Greens in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.
In 1996 Bob was elected to the Australian Senate, where some of the bills he has introduced include constitutional reform, forest protection, blocking radioactive waste dumping, voluntary euthanasia, banning mandatory sentencing of Aboriginal children, an Australian republic, banning junk food advertising to children and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
He was re-elected in 2001 and again in 2007, with 17.74% of the Senate vote.
EVENTS
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LATEST UPDATES
Governments' handout to loggersGreens Leader Bob Brown said today's announcement, by state and federal Labor governments, of a $22.4 million package of taxpayers' money to Tasmania's logging indust... (read more)
from Bob Brown's Facebook feedVoters disapprove of major party tactics to shut out the GreensA new Galaxy Poll commissioned by Senator Bob Brown has revealed overwhelming disapproval by voters of major party tactics to shut out... (read more)
from Bob Brown's Facebook feedFerguson's Kimberley gas hub stitch-upThe federal Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson effectively directed Woodside to build its giant gas processing factory at James Price Point in the Kimberl... (read more)
from Bob Brown's Facebook feedGreens' bill will protect sport on free TV The Australian Greens will introduce a new bill this week to federal Parliament to safeguard major sports on free-to-air television. ...
(read more) from Bob Brown's Facebook feedBrown moves to reduce plastic bag useAustralian Greens Leader Bob Brown has introduced legislation into the Senate for the introduction of a 25c levy on plastic bags at retail outlets in an effort ... (read more)
from Bob Brown's Facebook feed
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