Audio Excerpt - Senator:

“Honourable members! Honourable senators! The President of the United States of America”

BOB:

Way back there at the start of the 2000s, along came 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 of the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, decided together 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 indeed Australia.

Audio Excerpt - George Bush:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Laura and I are honoured to be in the Commonwealth of Australia.”

BOB:

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 gonna come out of my chest. However, I knew if I didn’t get up I was going to forever regret it.

Audio Excerpt - George Bush:

“Today Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, and no one…”

Audio Excerpt - House of Representatives:

[Yelling in background]

Audio Excerpt - Neil Andrew:

“Senator Brown, I warn you. Senator Brown will excuse himself from the house. Senator Brown will excuse himself from the house.”

BOB:

I said to him, “President Bush, if you abide by international law instead of breaking global law the world will respect you. If you don't, it won't. And, free our two Australians from Guantanamo Bay.”

Audio Excerpt - Member of Parliament:

“Mr Speaker, I move that Senators Brown and Nettle be suspended from the service of the house.”

Audio Excerpt - House of Representatives:

[Senators yelling here here]

[Theme music starts]

Audio Excerpt - Speaker:

“Question is the motion be agreed to, all those with that opinion say aye.”

DANIEL:

When Bob Brown spoke out against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, 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.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Dutton:

“What you did today was a complete embarrassment not only to yourself but to the Australian people.”

DANIEL:

But looking back, he says it was one of his proudest moments.

Now, at 80 years of age, Bob argues that speaking up in public and in private is crucial to pushing back against the strong man leaders of today with their assaults on democracy and on the planet.

From Schwartz Media, I’m Daniel James, this is 7am.

Today, lifelong activist and former Greens leader Bob Brown on how he takes a stand and why he’s still optimistic.

It’s Monday, February 17.

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DANIEL:

Bob thanks so much for speaking with us. 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 2025?

BOB:

Well, at the time of the greatest destruction of the global biosphere 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, homo sapiens, that's us.

And it seems that given the troubles that the world faces and the people feel individually, they want to vote for strong men. Donald Trump being the most notable outcome of a democratic vote, 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 or other 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.

DANIEL:

How do you think we got to this point?

BOB:

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 who ever supported Trump coming to me and saying I didn't know this was going to happen. It was done with eyes wide open, but it was also done in the secrecy of a ballot box where perfectly respectable people have found themselves very easily able to vote for a president who was a criminal.

And 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 person 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 sycophants and toadies and yes people. You see the billionaires, Australian as well as American, at Mar-a-Lago.

DANIEL:

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?

BOB:

It’s interesting because we've had our democracy corporatised. And the two parties getting together to pass legislation to make it harder for independents and greens etc. to get elected is a show of how that corporate power works.

Audio Excerpt - Reporter 1:

“It’s been described as a protection racket for the major political parties…”

Audio Excerpt - Reporter 2:

“Labor’s clinched a deal with the coalition to overhaul electoral laws.”

Audio Excerpt - Unidentified:

“In Victoria these kinds of laws have, in effect, knocked independents out of the game.”

BOB:

It also works through the media, current company excepted of course, where we see the impact that the Murdoch media has had planet-wise. And there's Rupert on inauguration day next to Donald Trump.

Audio Excerpt - 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 bucks more, I don't know but Rupert is in a class by himself. He’s an amazing guy…”

BOB:

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 is 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.

DANIEL:

So, how to be an optimist in the face of all this. That’s after the break.

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DANIEL:

Bob, you’re an optimist by nature, but given everything we’re facing in 2025 how do you retain that optimism?

BOB:

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 fellow because of the Cold War and, you know, personal circumstances but realised 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't change and we have to be optimistic that there is time. And I'm forever telling young folk, don't allow anxiety to overtake you. You know, 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.

DANIEL:

Can you explain what being confrontational looks like? What speaking out looks like?

BOB:

Confrontational means looking eye to eye not being obsequious. It doesn't mean being aggressive, it doesn't mean being violent in fact it's non-violent, but it does mean asserting your equal authority with other human beings and in all the places of, uh, 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. It be might be just people who want to vote for the extreme right, it might be in newspaper columns, it might be at the local 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 obsequious to trump and does all the right trade deals and gets us more money, no it won't. The fractioning and loss of our hard fought 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 1820s and 30s 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 three because I knew they would be copping it back in their time, and now it's our time and we're challenged and it's up to all of us.

DANIEL:

Bob Brown, thank you so much for your time.

BOB:

My great pleasure, thank you Daniel.

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[Theme Music Starts]

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 “traitor to the west” and the “most destructive president in history”.

Anthony Albanese has maintained support for Rudd in the role, but Peter Dutton says if Rudd doesn’t have access and influence in Washington he would need to go.

Dutton’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 Clare O’Neil on Sunday, will take effect on April 1 and last until the end of March, 2027. It prohibits any foreign investor or foreign owned company from buying an existing dwelling.

Peter Dutton unveiled a similar plan last year.

I’m Daniel James, this is 7am, thanks for listening.

[Theme Music Ends]

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