Bob Brown

It all started with the empty fruit bowl on a stark kitchen bench in Altona. The Fairfax profile of Julia Gillard in her first early days of prime ministership was a sign of times to come. Being Australia’s first female PM was going to be far from easy.

From grooming, decorum and the sound of her voice, to the appropriateness of her relationship with de facto partner, Tim Mathieson. To the lack of emotion displayed on cue from the devastation of the Queensland floods. 

When it comes to scrutiny of the personal nature, as a politician Julia Gillard has copped more than most.  As a prime minster it’s been unprecedented. The only real question is why.

Continue reading "Is it sexist? We’ve got nothing to compare it to" »

The Government gets a piece of totem legislation through the House of Representatives and immediately turns the victory into an extraordinary case of excessive executive secrecy.

In partnership with Greens Leader Bob Brown, the Government decided it was perfect reasonable to deny Parliament, its own MPs and the general public details of how it would pay to ensure support for the mining profits tax legislation.

If a private individual tried this, offering cash in secret to get a law passed, they would end up in jail. Probably they would share a cell with the member of Parliament who took the money.

Continue reading "Labor and Greens did a dodgy deal on mining tax" »

There were two people at Wednesday’s state dinner for US President Barack Obama at Parliament House who seemed a bit out of sorts. The first was the man who until recently had looked like our de facto prime minister, Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown. The second was our alternative prime minister, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who in the past fortnight has gone from being a dead-cert for PM to being the subject of criticism from conservatives about an election strategy based more on opposing things than proposing things.

As President Obama stood at the end of Parliament’s Great Hall in front of that remarkable tapestry of the Australian bush landscape, hand on his heart as The Star Spangled Banner played, Bob Brown grudgingly lifted himself from his seat to join in the standing ovation. Brown, the man who had shouted across the parliamentary chamber at Bill Clinton on his 1997 Australian visit, was up on his pegs and deferring to the Leader of the Free World, a man who represents pretty much everything Brown loathes.

The symbolism of it was one thing. Of more interest is the enormous and important policy shifts in defence and regional security which Prime Minister Gillard and President Obama have presided over this past fortnight which have helped Labor put some long-overdue distance between itself and its partner in power.

Continue reading "Bob and Tony’s awkward night with Obama" »

If you want to keep tabs on all the Obama action throughout the day, you can’t beat this live blog by Chris Paine over at News.com.au.

The eventual deployment of 2500 Marines in the Northern Territory, weather permitting, is not a massive military investment but it is designed to send a substantial message.

And the message is that as global power moves from the Atlantic to Asia, the United States intends to move with it.

And Australia will continue to be aligned with the US, even as its economic and cultural gears mesh more evenly and frequently with those of its regional neighbours.

Continue reading "Gillard and Obama: US forces given the nod" »

Julia Gillard might still need the Greens for support on important legislation, but the success of the carbon pricing package doesn’t mean a solid partnership has been formed.

In fact, it is possible there will be some big brawls ahead as Labor minister stop biting their tongues and tell the Greens what they really think.

Or more accurately, tell the electorate.

Continue reading "This could be the end of a beautiful fake friendship" »

The Australian Greens may well be a sanctimonious blight on the national political landscape but I don’t see why they should be teased for eating lentils or tofu.

There is nothing wrong with lentils at all. They’re terrific. Dhal rocks, as does lentil salad with mint, peas, red onion and feta, and stewed lentils make the perfect base for a grilled sausage.

Anyone who doesn’t like tofu should try the kick-arse Chinese dish mapo tofu, which is fresh tofu served with spring onions, minced pork and heaps of chilli. If that still doesn’t work they should get along to a little place called Barbecue City in Adelaide’s Chinatown and order the tofu with broad beans and pickled cabbage. While there is nothing smart or clever about vegetarianism there is also nothing wrong with eating vegetables, and this vegetable dish is one of the best going around.

Continue reading "Tofu-munching Greens are cooking up a big fat tax" »

The push by Bob Brown and Julia Gillard for a parliamentary inquiry into the media is so cynical, manipulative and transparently biased that if we really were as evil as they believe we’d congratulate them both for joining the dark side.

Both leaders are seeking to establish a connection in the public’s mind between the obscene and illegal practices exposed in the UK and perfectly conventional and legitimate journalism and commentary in Australia with which they just happen to disagree.

It is extraordinary both how blatantly they have hijacked the issue and how seamlessly the more naïve and ideological sections of the community have followed them to this at best offensive and at worst dangerous illogicality.

Continue reading "Gillard and Brown are shootin’ the messenger" »

When the sun rose yesterday morning, optimistic Federal Labor MPs must have woken up thinking: “Monday morning – time for damage control”. Their more pessimistic comrades would probably have been thinking: “A new week, a new fiasco”.

The weekend announcement that some motor vehicle users will be exempt from a carbon tax on petrol proved to be yet another example of the Gillard’s Government shocking ineptitude and deviousness.

It rivals the desperate knee-jerk reactions that were the East Timor “solution” (now abandoned), the Malaysian “solution” (still not finalised), the ban on all live cattle exports (which is killing an industry vital to northern Australia), and indeed the carbon tax announcement itself.

Continue reading "Another week, another new Labor fiasco" »

Next Wednesday night Nick Xenophon will host a party where, as per Greek tradition, guests will be invited to drink, eat and smash lots of plates.

This will symbolise Xenophon’s shattered hold on the Senate balance of power, and mark what he says is his increased irrelevance.

Former balance of power co-holder Steve Fielding has left the Upper House, and the Greens will have arrived in record numbers, ready to do Green business.

Continue reading "End of the (Parliamentary) world as we know it" »

The Federal Press Gallery’s Midwinter Ball was last night and this morning Bob Brown will be calculating how much contamination from big business he has received.

Senator Brown, the Greens leader, has attended past Midwinter Balls and to my knowledge has emerged with a smile and no scars.

This year he seemed to have forgotten what it is all about. The venue, the Great Hall of Parliament House, was “insidious”, he said recently. He was forced to dine with corporate executives, and it all resembled a strategy to divide and corrupt the Greens.

Continue reading "Brown’s getting his knickers in a twist over Ball" »

It has come to the attention of the Australian Greens and their supporters that members of the media have been questioning politicians about how policies such as the carbon tax will affect people’s lives. To its shame, even the ABC has succumbed to this disturbing trend.

A petition has been organised by activists on the GetUp! website urging the national broadcaster to pull 7.30 Report anchor Chris Uhlmann into line. In an interview last week Uhlmann had the temerity to ask Greens Leader Bob Brown whether he still believed Australia should phase out the coal industry. When Brown suggested that this was a wicked misrepresentation of his position by those of us in what he calls the “Murdoch hate media”, Uhlmann helpfully reminded the Greens Leader that it was actually a direct statement by Brown himself in an opinion piece he authored just four years ago.

Details, details.

Continue reading "Grizzling Greens want power without scrutiny" »

The jostling and lobbying amongst the Greens over who is to replace Brown has quietly continued on in earnest. Tasmanian Christine Milne is Brown’s first choice.

Seen as less of a firebrand than her younger colleagues, Brown hopes that Milne will maintain the camouflage of the Greens radical socialist agenda. A camouflage that has been the secret to the Greens’ electoral success to date.

Milne, however will be more aggressive than Brown in pursuing policies that put Australian jobs at risk. Milne would close down mines, make manufacturing unsustainable, and force farmers off their land.

Continue reading "No green pastures ahead in post-Bob Brown era" »

I was shocked to learn this week that infighting had broken out amongst the Greens, largely because I was under the impression they were pacifists.

But yet again I was wrong. The Greens have apparently had an internal falling out over their poor showing in the NSW election result. I didn’t believe it myself until I unearthed this secret recording of the Greens’ first ever full-blown factional war….

CONVENOR: Okay, is everybody here? There are still a few empty seats.

Continue reading "Greens war not kosher, says Marrickville mayor" »

There has been much bipartisan rejoicing, about the Greens inability to win seats in their latte-belt stomping ground. The glee on the Right is understandable, but the champagne-popping among Labor supporters may prove to be shortsighted.

As is frequently observed, the ALP finds itself in the seemingly untenable position of trying to simultaneously appeal to those who — to channel the increasingly Sarah Palinesque Julia Gillard — set their alarms early and lead purposeful, dignified lives driven by love of family and nation.

And those who sleep in until 11am, fire up the breakfast bong, then amble down to a café wallpapered with Bill Henson prints of spread-eagled 13-year-olds to fill in an application for yet another round of arts funding while their same-sex partner amuses the nose-ring-sporting barista with acid-tongued denunciations of the ANZAC spirit/the music of Barnesy/hard-yakka-loving brickies and their heroic working families/baby Jesus/Don Bradman.

Continue reading "Is it time the latte-sippers left the bogans’ party?" »

In May this year, the venerable old man of the left, Bob Brown will address the National Press Club.

He will use the live broadcast to outline his party’s vision for that historic moment on July 1, when his party holds the exclusive balance of power in the Senate.

With four senators to add to the five already in Canberra and a House of Representatives MP thrown in for good measure, the enviro-activist turned ground-breaking politician, sits atop a growing party widely considered the legitimate third force in Australian politics.

Continue reading "Green slip shows they’re no compulsory third party" »

It’s a telling reflection on the Greens’ woeful campaign at last Saturday’s NSW election that the one politician they may have helped elect is the founder of the One Nation Party, Pauline Hanson.

The Greens were meant to cruise into office in the Lower House in New South Wales in at least two seats. Given how badly the former Labor Government had been going, and how strongly the Greens’ primary vote had been standing up in the polls, they could and should have been expected to return more than just a couple of MPs.

Instead, their campaign crashed and burned. And it did so in a way which may have caused enduring acrimony with the Labor Party. Needless to say, with federal Labor having the most precarious grasp on power courtesy of a formal coalition with the Greens, these tensions in our biggest State have the potential to strain this arrangement.

Continue reading "The Greens: when all else fails cry conspiracy" »

To adapt the slogan of the NRA: Labor voters don’t elect Greens; Liberals elect Greens.

The Green ambitions in the NSW election were massively frustrated last night because the Liberals did not direct their second-choice votes to them.

Without that vital second tier support from their unlikely ballot buddies the Liberals, the Greens did worse than they hoped in the vulnerable inner-city Labor seats of Marrickville and Balmain.

Continue reading "Greens will die on the vine without Liberal help" »

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been confronted by concerned members of the Labor Right over legislation that would restrict the ability of the Commonwealth to overturn territory laws.

Their fear is that it would allow the territories to introduce their own laws on same-sex marriage and euthanasia, and the Prime Minister has been forced to delay her support for the bill.  Wayne Swan this morning has said the concerns are “legitimate.”  It’s a statement of the obvious that Julia Gillard is squeezed from the left by her coalition with the Greens, and from the right by the Labor party’s right wing concerned it will lose touch with increasingly angry base.

Perhaps what is less clear is what the territories’ legislation will actually allow.  Legally it doesn’t actually allow gay marriage or euthanasia, but there is a divergence between legal and political realities which would open up the door to their legalisation.

Continue reading "Gillard’s gay marriage and euthanasia minefield" »

Julia Gillard has staked the future of her Government on a costly, complex, and probably unpopular climate change policy.

And she had to break an election commitment to do it.

Call it brave or perhaps crazy-brave but Ms Gillard is nothing if not a quick study. She plans to move fast and get it done this year. Not for her the glacial pace, the bloated timelines, and reams of ponderous reports favoured by Kevin Rudd.

Continue reading "Last man standing will be winner on carbon tax" »

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has announced today that she intends to introduce a fixed cost for carbon emissions by July 1 2012, with the introduction of a cap and trade emissions trading scheme within three to five years after that.

We’ve all known it was coming, but for a carbon price to move out of the abstract and back into the real world is a massive jolt to the political system. This announcement is a big one: for households, for business, for the environment and for Julia Gillard’s future as Prime Minister.

As my colleague Samantha Maiden at the Sunday Telegraph tweeted this afternoon: “My considered if profane opinion on carbon price: Gillard is best when in combat mode. She’s just called on biggest s***tfight of her career.” True dat.

Continue reading "Gillard’s make or break carbon price plan" »

Antipodean Greens have established themselves as the rudest on the planet, with the New Zealanders easily winning the local derby.

Tomorrow Prime Minister Julia Gillard will address the New Zealand Parliament in Wellington in what her Kiwi counterpart, conservative John Key, had hoped would be a first.

However, NZ Greens co-leader Russel Norman and colleagues have made sure the Parliament won’t be in session when she arrives, making it just another speech and not a high-level honour.

Continue reading "Rude Greens give red light to Gillard" »

There is a great line in the Dan Brown novel, Angels & Demons, when Robert Langdon is speaking with the Camerlengo in the Vatican regarding the existence of God.

Langdon says, as an academic, he’ll never understand God, and his heart says he’s not meant to. Without wanting to be too melodramatic, this sums up my feelings towards climate change.

To be frank, I’d love to believe in climate change. It’s a popular idea, and it’s one that, if you can discuss it using lots of long-winded terminology, you can often sound very intelligent.

Continue reading "PUNCH: It’s just too hard to understand climate change" »

Bob Brown is ever the opportunist, even if his timing leaves a very bad taste in everyone’s mouths.

His recent pronouncement that our coal industry is to blame for the devastation caused by the floods in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania is both absurd and insensitive.

All the experts, whatever their views on climate change, agree that the increased rainfalls are driven by the long-established cycles of La Nina weather events, just as El Nino is associated with drought.

Continue reading "Let’s get over our dam phobia" »

You would think the Greens might have learnt something from the backlash they faced after using the 2009 Victorian bushfire tragedy to deliver an impromptu lecture on climate change.

With the fires still underway and the death toll rising, Senator Bob Brown commented at the time that the extent and ferocity of the fires was a pointer to the reality of global warming. Maybe so – not being a scientist I couldn’t say – but the more pressing issue was one of time and place. On both counts, Bob Brown failed the taste test, and quite spectacularly.

With the flood crisis now turning to Victoria, and the death toll expected to increase in Queensland as the recovery continues, Senator Brown has now decided to use this latest national tragedy to launch an attack on the coal industry. Unlike the bushfires, it’s difficult to identify any precise link between burning coal and the re-occurrence of a flood pattern which has been with Australia since well before white settlement, but the Greens Leader clearly didn’t want to let the opportunity pass him by. As Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce pointed out in a moment of lucidity, in 1893 the Brisbane River flood gauge reached 8.35m. “Was the coal industry responsible for that as well?” Joyce asked. 

Continue reading "Who needs Pauline when you’ve got Bob Brown?" »

On Wednesday Bob Brown said two odd things that either proved he is some kind of political genius, or was the kind of rhetoric that sets the Greens up for a big fall in the future. My guess is it’s the former now but will be the latter later.

The first was his apparent objection to the proposed merger of the Australian Stock Exchange with the Singaporean Exchange.

The crux of his opposition was that Singapore had executed the young Australian Van Nguyen for drug trafficking in 2005, and this was a militaristic non-democratic state that we should be careful about handing over our stock exchange to.

Continue reading "If the Greens want to play the majors they need to grow up" »

With the beginning of a parliamentary debate into the war in Afghanistan this week, the more localised conflict between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott of trips to the warzone came to a periodic truce.

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But the outbreak of the highly politicised PR war between the leaders over who was supporting the troops in Afghanistan more does bring us to an interesting question: what is the point of politicians hanging in war zones?

Earlier in the week the Greens Senator Bob Brown was asked by the 7:30 Report’s Kerry O’Brien why, as the leader of a party pushing for troop withdrawal from the war, he had not visited Afghanistan.

Continue reading "The growth industry of pollies in war zones" »

Greens leader Bob Brown will today have his first real win of the new paradigm, with the debate he called for on our involvement in the War in Afghanistan set to commence at the conclusion of Question Time in the House of Representatives.

It’s unlikely the Government would have consented to such a debate if it didn’t have to, such is the growing chorus of questions surrounding our mission there.

The Greens are not the only ones questioning the strategy and time-frame of our deployment - but there’s no doubt Bob Brown is in the hot-seat now, and must be hoping the debate, which will also cascade into the Senate next week, produces something more than bi-partisan adherence to the stock standard lines.

The Punch will cover the commencement of the debate live directly after Question Time, which begins at 2pm. Check back on the home page this afternoon to join in.

Continue reading "What should we get out of the Afghanistan debate?" »

Bob Brown should be first to chip in to Rob Oakeshott’s swear jar which the independent MP says needs topping up any time someone says the Labor government has a mandate.

The Greens leader appeared to contradict Oakeshott when he wrestled with the mandate question on Lateline last night. Asked what he thought of the member for Lyne’s view that the Gillard government shouldn’t be claiming to have a mandate, Brown replied:

Well it’s got - we got a proportional mandate, and it’s got the biggest mandate amongst the make-up of government, ah, and it’s certainly now got a stronger mandate than the Coalition.

Continue reading "Watch it, sunshine" »

The 2010 election result may not yet be clear, and we may be far from certain just who will be Prime Minister in a week or a fortnight’s time, but there is one thing we do know after the events of Saturday night.

The Australian people have chosen the Greens to play a much greater role in our new Parliament, and a much greater role in our decision-making.

Aside from the fact that we are looking at the first hung parliament since 1940, we have seen an historic vote for the Greens, with a record share of the national vote for a third party, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. That is in addition to the success of Adam Bandt , the first Green to win a lower house seat at a Federal election.

Continue reading "Democracy will benefit from a healthy shade of Green" »

Greens leader Bob Brown has just delivered one of the sledges of the campaign during his address to the National Press Club - saying “I do have a vision for Australia and I won’t be consulting the phone book to refine it.”

That vision turned out to be a long grab-bag style list of issues Brown says the Greens will push if they get the balance of power in the Senate.

Of obtaining that balance of power he seemed very confident. Brown started his speech recounting some of the many messages of support he says he’s received, quoting people who’ve never voted Green before pledging to do so this time.

Continue reading "Bob Brown is feeling lucky" »

I sent a rather indignant email to Bob Brown the other day. I followed it up with an equally frustrated voicemail.

Essentially, I berated him for not being the inspirational and credible figurehead that he has been for the environmental movement for decades. I questioned his lack of visibility in an election that arguably presents one of the most monumental and significant chances the Greens have had of becoming a very powerful political force.

Senator Christine Milne’s media spokesperson Tim Hollo replied to my accusations (charitably also acknowledging that he understood my frustrations) with the simple question: “Why is the media complaining about the fluff and nonsense and policy vacuum of this election campaign, talking about the Greens having the potential to hold balance of power but completely ignoring the Greens’ policy launches?”

Continue reading "Where’s Bob Brown? He’s campaigning, just on the web" »

Senator Bob Brown has his cranky pants on because the Greens are not included in the leaders’ debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. According to Brown, the Greens should get a go on Sunday as the potential balance of powerpuffs in the Senate.

Acknowledging he has more chance of contesting the MasterChef final than the debate, Brown thinks the major parties are running scared. “Julia and Tony don’t want the Greens there showing them up on issues like Afghanistan, like [e]quality in marriage, like greening the economy, like a carbon price, like better funding for public education and for health”.

Yet for all their grandstanding, do the Greens really deserve a turn with the worm? One of the great untold stories of federal politics in recent months is the under-performance of the Greens.

Continue reading "Grandstanding Greens aren’t ready for the big league" »

Beware the politician who likes to claim moral superiority above other politicians.  They will likely be proven to be a hypocrite.  For today’s prize winner, meet Bob Brown.

Brown likes to pretend that his party, the Greens, represent some form of new politics.  They claim to stand on principle.  In reality, they stand for themselves.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but don’t try to con voters otherwise.

Like the Christian crusader who gets outed visiting brothels, the holier than thou political change agent who strikes the same old political deals deserves our scorn. 

Continue reading "Preference deal paints the Greens as a pack of frauds" »

It was one of the funniest exchanges on television since Homer Simpson was interviewed by Kent Brockman on Smartline about his decision to form a vigilante gang.

Simpson: “Oh, Kent, I’d be lying if I said my men weren’t committing crimes.” Brockman: “Well, touché.”

On The 7.30 Report on Tuesday night, Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown came under some fairly routine questioning from Kerry O’Brien about asylum seekers. O’Brien asked Brown whether he thought that any of the people who arrived illegally in Australia should ever be sent back to any of the countries they had fled.

Brown had a “this does not compute” moment and blanked out, and then shot back at O’Brien to ask him whether he thought that any of them should be sent back.

Continue reading "The Greens should look at replacing leader Bob Brown" »

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young had a good idea. Well, it seemed like a good idea. You be the judge, if you can keep watching after the Bob Brown photo moment.

He might have a problem with yellowcake, but with his apocalyptic oratory at the National Press Club this week, Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown showed he’s more than happy to resort to nuclear-powered fraudulence to make his case.

The Senator’s performance in the debate with Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation chairman Ziggy Switkowski at the National Press Club this week was one of the more disingenuous recent contributions to Australian public life.

Since September 11 and throughout the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Senator Brown has been our very own antipodean Noam Chomsky, arguing long and loud that Australia has been suckered into a battle with an illusory enemy at the behest of Uncle Sam.

Continue reading "Why the Greens are nuclear-powered frauds" »

Rightly or wrongly the Senate is currently standing in the way of a chunk of the Rudd Government’s agenda.

The Rudd Bank, Renewable Energy Targets, and a Building Industry Watchdog are all in contention at the moment.

But after Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young suffered what she said was the most “humiliating moment” of her life last night, its been agreed the Senate will debate on Monday the rules over children being allowed into the Chamber. Taxpayer dollars at work.

Continue reading "Babies don’t belong at work" »