If ever there was an individual in recent Australian political history with real leadership qualities, who routinely demonstrated old fashioned “guts’ in pursuit of the national interest… it was Bob Brown, the ex Greens leader.
In a representative sense, he is the only high profile politician to my knowledge, who has stood up for his personal beliefs when the going got tough, who did not buckle when the state applied pressure in response to established, often right wing, vested interests. Brown is a free thinker ahead of his time and the Australian political process will be poorer in his absence.
Thirty years ago during the turbulent days of the Franklin River debate, when Tony Abbott was snug’n safe in the manicured grounds of Queens College, Oxford, Bob Brown was sitting in a dirty cell in Hobart’s Risdon Prison. He had been placed there (for 19 days) after protesting the construction of the Franklin River Dam, a pristine natural bush area consequently placed on the World Heritage List for generations of Australians to enjoy.
Ten years ago, as an anti-war activist, opposing both the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, he was one of only two Federal politicians (i.e.the second being Senator Kerry Nettle) who had the courage to stand up to the American juggernaut, on behalf of Australian citizens incarcerated without trial, in the US Guantanamo Bay prison complex. These mindless conflicts have since been proven to be abject failures, with the loss of many unnecessary lives. Both the US-NATO alliance and current bipartisan major Australian political parties can’t wait, at least privately, to bring their soldiers home, to get the hell out of there.
Most recently Brown’s genuine personal concern for the physical environment, traditionally scoffed at by conservative voters, has been reflected in community resistance to coal seam gas exploration and increasing membership of the “Lock the Gate’ alliance. Real or potential land degradation, seemingly always in “far away places’ before, of no real concern to local folks is now fermenting under hearth and home, requiring urgent action and daily vigilance. This intimate association of usually disparate political philosophies is a sign of the future, something that Bob Brown has been thinking about and actively advocating and/or participating in, for years.
So whereas Tony Abbott and his Liberal ilk are habitually “reactive’ politicians, comfortable with the status quo, responding to mainstream public protest from a position of self interested comfort i.e. reacting only when they have to: Brown has been a trend setter. Brown ventured where others dare not go, where others have been politically frightened to go. But those same politicians were later very happy to be a part of the trail just blazed.
Three cheers Bob, enjoy your retirement!
Brendon Perrin,
Armidale
