Honorable Members, honorable Senators, the President of the United States of America. Way back there at the start of the two thousands of long Cane, President Bush, and he was to address the Joint Houses of Parliament. Well, of course, earlier, just months earlier, President Bush and his so called deputy sheriff, the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, decided to invade Iraq. And I determined that I couldn't allow that to go by without speaking up about this global breaking of the
law by America and Australia. Leeis and gentlemen, Lauren and I are honoured to be in the Commonwealth of Australia. We went in and sat in the middle of the House of Representatives. I was internally in meltdown. My heart started beating. I thought it was going to come out of my chest. However, I knew if I didn't get up, I was going to forever regret it. It's the Taliban today. Saddam's regime is gone, and no wonders.
Senator Brown, I warn you, Senator Brown will excuse himself from the house. Senator Brown will excuse himself from the house.
I said to him, President Bush, if you abide by international law instead of breaking global r the world rule. Respect you. If you don't, it won't And three our two Australians from Guandanamo Bay.
Mister speaker, I moved at Sunata's Brown and that'll be suspended from the service of the House. Questions that most would be agreed to.
All those that opinions say hi.
When Bob Brown spoke out against the invasion of Iraq in two thousand and three, at the height of the War on Terror, he was widely derided, mocked in the press and even abused by a young Queensland MP Peter Dutton.
What you did today was a complete embarrassment, not only to yourself between Australian.
People, but looking back, he says it was one of his proudest moments. Now at eighty years of age, Bob argues that speaking up in public and in private is crucial to pushing back against the strong man leaders of the day with the assaults at democracy and on the planet. From Swartz Media, I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM today. Lifelong activist and former Green's leader Bob Brown and how he takes a stand and why he's still optimistic. It's Monday,
February seventeen. Bob, thanks so much for speaking with this. You've been an activist for your entire life. You've lived through different political eras. What are we facing in this moment here in twenty twenty five.
Well, at the time of the greatest destruction of the global biasphere upon which we all depend for life. What we're facing is not just a mass extinction event due to climate change, but also the destruction of habitats and the increasingly evident inability of the planet to host the cause of that destruction, which is a single species, homosapiens.
That's us. And it seems that given the troubles that the world faces, and that people feel individually, they want to vote for strong men, Donald Trump being the most notable outcome of a democratic poet, although not by any means the only one in history. They want to vote for strong men they mainly are men because they feel that in some way that transfers authority for what is happening and hopefully the fixing up of the situation to
an individual in a position of greater power. Of course, that's nonsense.
How do you think we got to this point?
Well, look it seems to me that what's happened in America that the majority of the community there decided to allow their instinct for self to vote for Trump and bring him into power against all the things that we knew could go wrong and which are now unfolding. And heaven forbid anybody whoever supported Trump coming to me and
saying I didn't know this was going to happen. It was done what eyes wide open, But it was also done in the secrecy of a ballot box where perfectly respectable people found themselves very easily able to vote for a president who was a criminal. I think also we have to not say, oh, you know, he's just trying it on. He'll fall back to some other position. There's a very big mistake in thinking that a narcissist and a bully and a personal lacking empathy is not meaning
what he says. The only constraints will come from within his own camp, and they're very limited because such bullies do surround themselves with seekerphants and toadies and yes people. You see the billionaires Australian as well as American at Mara Lago.
We have shades of Trump in terms of his style of leadership and politics sort of infiltrating Australia at the moment. Where do you see the threats to Australian democracy.
It's interesting because we've had our democracy corporatized and the two parties getting together to pass legislation to make it harder for Independence and Greens etc. To get elected is a show of how that corporate power works.
It's been described as a protect racket for the major political parties. The Labor's clinched to deal with the coalition to overhaul electoral laws in Victoria.
These kinds of laws have in effect knocked Independence out of the game. It also works through the media current company accepted of course, where we see the impact that the Murdoch media has had planet wise. And there's Rupert on inauguration Day sitting next to Donald Trump in.
Business publishing and probably every other Rupert is Larry pretty much in a class by himself, right, I mean, although you may have a couple of bucks more, I don't know, but what Rupert is in a class by himself is.
An amazing.
You just see this arrogant belief that if you're rich, you must be a good manager, and therefore you must be a person who's somehow, with biblical references thrown in, able to run the world better than the other people who you see around. And if there's one thing these folk despise, it's wisdom, a greater wisdom than their own, and compassion, a feeling of sympathy and empathy for people who are not doing as well. They don't have it, they don't want it, and they arrogate to themselves the
power to run other people's lives. And that's not what a democracy is about.
So how to be an optimist in the face of all of this? That's after the break, Bob. You're an optimist by nature, but given everything we're facing in twenty twenty five, how do you retain that optimism?
Well, it's easier than being pessimistic, and it really is an empirical choice. I mean, it's a determined choice. I spent a decade clinically depressed as a young followed because of the Cold War and in personal circumstances, but realized towards the end of that that it was getting me nowhere, and it wasn't doing much for the people around me either.
So hauling out of that by looking at what you can change for the better within your own orbit of power if you like, or influence and going for that put the bigger troubles you can't fix on the shelf. You can't, of course take them out of your mind, but get on with the things that you can change. And we have to be optimistic that there is time. And I'm forever telling other folk, don't allow anxiety to
overtake you. Take the time to have parties, to have fun, to travel, to get your certificate or your degree, to find good companions, because otherwise, if things are so urgent that you can't afford to do that, then I think we just could give up. And I'm not one for giving up. I am one for saying to people, use your intelligence to override this instinct for greed which is currently ruling the world, and which is leading us into such poor circumstances. It is for us to speak up
and to be confrontational. I mean, after all, these brutes are confrontational. They're straight out I want this and I'm going to have this. Well they have to be told, well, you're not getting it, because we want something different, and we have to be all in our own little circle and in our own way standing up and making account because history depends on it.
Can you explain what being confrontational looks like, what speaking out looks like.
Confrontational means looking eye to eye, not being a seve best. It doesn't mean being aggressive, it doesn't mean being violent, fact it's non violent. But it does mean asserting your equal authority with are they human beings, and in places of elected authority, asserting your equal authority all the way down the line with those other elected representatives. And we're schooled to be good, to be nice, to be decent,
to listen, and that's fine in a working community. But these brutes of the extreme right now taking over the world and potentially this country, don't believe in any of that. They believe in repression. They believe in shutting up opponents, locking them up, jailing them and getting them off the streets and out of the way. And we can't allow that to happen. We cannot just stand by and allow
that to happen. So being confrontational simply means saying what you think when the opportunity arises to those who are going the wrong direction, at whatever level they might be. It might be just people who want a vote for the extreme right. It might be in newspaper columns, it might be at the low church or sports club. Don't listen in silence to somebody saying, oh, well, it'll be good for us if we have a prime minister who's obsequius to Trump and does all the right trade deals
and gets this more money. No it won't. The fractioning and loss of our hard for rights in Australia are more important than that. And let me tell you, Daniel, I look back at the almost unthinkable destruction of Aboriginal society in Tasmania in the eighteen twenties and thirties, and you know, a whole island of people destroyed within a couple of decades at the point of a gun and otherwise.
And there were three landowners who kept writing to the papers who said this is wrong, we shouldn't be doing that. And I take great spirit from those because I knew they would be copying it back in their time. And now it's our time and we're challenged and it's up to all of us.
Bob Brown, thank you so much for your time.
A great pleasure to thank you, Daniel.
Also in the news today, Peter Dutton says he may replace US Ambassador Kevin Rudd if he wins the election. Prior to his time as ambassador, Rudd described Donald Trump as a trader to the West and the most destructive president in history. Anthony Alberanezi has maintained support for Rudd in the role, but Peter Dunton says if Rudd doesn't have access and influence in Washington, he would need to go. Dunton's comments follow a campaign in the Murdoch Press calling
for Rudd to be recalled as ambassador. You can read about that campaign in the Saturday Paper. And temporary residents of Australia will be banned from buying existing homes. The move, which was unveiled by Housing Minister Clara O'Neil on Sunday, will take effect on April one and last until the end of March twenty twenty seven. It prohibits any foreign investor or foreign owned company from buying and existing dwelling. Peter Dutton unveiled a similar plan last year. I'm Daniel James.
This is seven am. Thanks for listening.