Bob Brown
Robert James Brown (born
December 27,
1944), is an
Australian Senator, the inaugural Parliamentary Leader of the
Australian Greens and the first openly
homosexual member of the
Parliament of Australia. He created international headlines on
October 23,
2003 when he was suspended from the Parliament for breaking with
protocol and interjecting during an address by the visiting President of the
United States,
George W. Bush. Brown's Senate colleague,
Kerry Nettle, was also suspended.
Bob Brown was born in
Oberon,
New South Wales and attended Trunkey Public School and
Blacktown Boys High School, and in his senior year he was elected school captain. After graduating from high school he enrolled in medicine at Sydney University. He moved to
Tasmania in
1972 and worked as a general medical practitioner in
Launceston. He soon became involved in the state's
environmentalist movement, in particular the campaign to save
Lake Pedder, and was a member of the
United Tasmania Group in 1972, Australia's first "green" party. In a newspaper interview at this time, Brown announced he was gay.
In
1978 Brown was appointed director of the
Tasmanian Wilderness Society. In the early 1980s he emerged as a leader of the campaign to prevent construction of the
Franklin Dam, which would have drowned the
Franklin River valley as part of a
hydroelectricity project. Brown was among the 1500 people arrested while protesting during this campaign. He subsequently spent 19 days in Hobart's Risdon Prison. On the day of his release in
1983, Brown was elected into Tasmania's Parliament. The Franklin campaign was a success after Federal government intervention protected the Franklin River in 1983.
During his first term of office, 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. His 1987 bill to ban semi-automatic guns was voted down by both Liberal and Labor members of Tasmania's House of Assembly, seven years before the
Port Arthur Massacre[
1] resulted in a successful Federal Liberal bid to achieve the same results.
In 1989 Tasmania's system of
proportional representation allowed the Greens to win five out of 35 seats in the Tasmanian House of Assembly, and Brown became their unofficial leader (at that time, the Greens did not have formal leadership positions). He agreed to support a minority
Labor Party government, but this agreement broke down over
forestry issues in
1992. In
1993 Brown resigned from the House of Assembly and stood unsuccessfully for the federal
House of Representatives.
Brown was elected to the
Australian Senate for Tasmania in
1996, and was an outspoken voice in opposition to the conservative government of
John Howard, and in support of green and
human rights issues, including international issues such as
Tibet,
East Timor and
West Papua. He also introduced bills for constitutional reform, forest protection, to block radioactive waste dumping, to ban mandatory sentencing of aboriginal children and for greenhouseabatement.
At the 2001 federal election Brown was re-elected to the Senate with a greatly increased vote, and was outspoken on Prime Minister
John Howard's refusal to allow 450 asylum seekers (mostly from
Afghanistan) to land on
Christmas Island after they had been rescued from their sinking boat in the
Indian Ocean by the
MV Tampa, a
Norwegian freighter. Brown was equally critical of Opposition Leader
Kim Beazley's acquiescence to John Howard's stance on the Tampa incident[
2].
Brown was particularly vocal in his opposition to Australian participation in the
2003 invasion of Iraq and became recognised as a leading voice for the anti-war/peace movement.
Despite his rather dour and humourless public manner, he is widely admired as a man of courage and conviction, even by those who disagree with him. One example of Brown at his most tolerant (as well as an indication of a dry sense of humour) is his welcoming of
Fred Nile's intention to run as a
Christian Democratic Party of Australia candidate for the Australian Senate in the 2004 federal election. Brown was quoted as saying "He will give the opportunity to highlight the Greens' humanitarian policies which have doubled the vote for the Greens in the last three or four years."
When President Bush visited
Canberra on
23 October 2003, left-wing members of the
Labor Party decided to present him with a letter setting out their opposition to the Iraq war, but not to disrupt his speech. Only Brown and Nettle took their opposition to the point of interjecting during his address to a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament. During Bush's speech Brown and Nettle wore signs referring to
David Hicks and
Mamdouh Habib, two Australian citizens held at
Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba at that time (Habib has since been released), following their apprehension by United States forces in Afghanistan and
Pakistan respectively. After the speech, however, Brown shook Bush's hand.
Bush accepted the interjections with good humour, but the
Speaker of the House,
Neil Andrew, formally "named" Brown and Nettle and they were suspended from the Parliament for 24 hours which prevented them from being present for a similar address from
Chinese President
Hu Jintao the next day.
Brown opposed the Howard Government's amendments to the Marriage Act in 2004, stating that "Mr Howard should relax and accept
gay marriages as part of the future's social fabric"[
3].
In
December 2004, forestry and export woodchip company
Gunns Limited attempted to sue Brown and others for $6.3 million, in an action which media reports say related to "ongoing damaging campaigns and activities" against the company. The original
Statement of Claim issued by Gunns was struck out by the Supreme Court and costs were awarded against Gunns for the initial proceedings.
Brown was formally elected as the first Federal Parliamentary Leader of The Greens on
28 November 2005 [
4], following almost a decade of service as de facto leader since his election to the Senate in 1996.
Brown is due to face re-election at the
2007 federal election; should he do so successfully he would be 69 by the end of his third term. He announced his intention to stand again at the Greens National Conference in November 2005.
Brown has published several books including
Wild Rivers (1983),
Lake Pedder (1986),
Tarkine Trails (1994),
The Greens (1996) (with
Peter Singer),
Memo For A Saner World (2004) and
Tasmania's Recherche Bay (2005). In 2004
James Norman published the first authorised biography of Brown, entitled
Bob Brown: A Gentle Revolutionary. Brown lives in
Hobart with his long-time partner.
*
Tasmanian Parliamentary library profile*
Senator Brown's website*
Senator Brown's parliamentary website*
Senator Bob Brown National Press Club Address 25 September 2001*
George W Bush's speech to the Australian Parliament*"
Bob Brown suspended over blackmail barb",
The Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 2003
*
The Writ lodged in the Supreme Court of Victoria by Gunns against Bob Brown and others.*
Senator Brown's campaign to challenge logging in the Wielangta Forest 
