Imagine you had to ask permission of a uniformed guard to use a microwave to heat your baby's bottle. That's what asylum seeker women I've sat beside in Darwin have had to do when they want to feed their children.

I have to admit that the use of the phrase ‘tough love’ to describe the latest wave of mostly punitive welfare reforms makes me cringe.

Mr Swan said in his traditional post-budget address to the National Press Club that the Greens had proved they could work with the government on economic matters.

"When we were staring the global financial crisis in the face and we had to get the stimulus package through the parliament the wreckers weren't the Greens, it was the Liberals," he said.

http://www.tradingroom.com.au/apps/view_breaking_news_article.ac?page=/data/news_research/published/2011/5/131/catf_110511_142400_2683.html

The following is an article by Australian Financial Review Chief Political Correspondent David Crowe that first appeared in the paper on Friday May 6 2011

Greens leader Bob Brown has warned against a "punitive" federal budget that forces people off welfare, declaring yesterday he and his colleagues would amend reforms if necessary to offer rewards instead of penalties for those who get jobs.

Federal Greens MPs held a conference call last night to finalise their budget strategy, opening the discussion to senators-elect who are to join the upper house from July 1 and will vote on budget bills.

Were you to arrive in Australia and read the front pages of our newspapers you would be forgiven for thinking that we are living in some type of black hole, devoid of information, news and expert opinion from the rest the world.

What other possible explanation could there be for the ignorance of those who warn of the end of civilisation were a carbon tax to established than by claiming Australia would be out on a limb, leading the world.

Leading the world? You've got to be joking. Many other countries have already put a price on carbon and introduced realistic pollution reduction targets. And while they are spending significant public and private dollars firming up investment in the technologies and energy sources for the future, Australia is still locked in a debate over whether big polluters should even pay for their pollution.

The following piece is by NSW Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann.

The election of the first Greens MP to the NSW Legislative Assembly is a historic breakthrough for the party, but if success for the Greens in NSW is to continue, we need a reality check and some soul searching.

The nail-biting win in Balmain, with an almost certain increase in our upper house numbers from four to five, means the Greens have come close to achieving the objectives we set at the start of the election campaign.

But if truth be told, more than a few of us are feeling a little flat about the overall result. That is because the success in Balmain was not repeated in Marrickville and our statewide vote was expected to be significantly higher.

It is time to get the facts straight with regard to the forest principles process and the Gunns pulp mill debate. Senator Abetz may be nostalgic for this glory days as Federal Minister promoting clear fell logging of high conservation value native forests and plantation establishment on our farms but he is completely out of touch.
The logging industry approached the conservation movement to seek assistance to exit native forests in Tasmania because native forest logging is unprofitable.
So Senator Abetz, it was the logging industry which approached the green groups, not the other way around. The Forest Principles process was the result.

Having spent months inciting a people's revolt, Tony Abbott needs to take responsibility for the revolting tactics of his ''revolutionaries''.

Like many Australians, I was stunned to see the Leader of the Opposition and his some of his frontbench colleagues standing in front of a placard referring to the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, as ''Bob Brown's bitch''. It defies belief that none of them read this sign before standing in front of it.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown congratulated his German colleagues today as preliminary results showed the Green party had seized power from Angela Merkel's conservatives in one of Germany's richest states, Baden-Württemberg.

As Claudia Roth, joint leader of the Green party, said in Berlin, the Greens have ‘written history’ as people vote for renewable energy and against nuclear power,” Senator Brown said in Hobart today.

Winfried Kretschmann could become the Green party's first regional “minister president” after the party gained 25% of the vote and ousted the conservatives who had ruled for almost 60 years.