In a surprise move, the leader of the Australian Greens has said he is retiring, and will leave politics at the end of June. Brown of course created the political party and brought it into national prominence. And he is also known for his radical, even moonbattery ideas.
The actual news of this announcement goes as follows: “Bob Brown has resigned as leader of the Australian Greens and will quit the Senate, with his former deputy Christine Milne to replace him at the helm of Australia’s third party. Senator Brown, 67, will leave the Senate in June. The party will now seek a successor to fill his seat.
“Senator Milne, who was unanimously endorsed by colleagues as Senator Brown’s successor, flagged a fresh push by the party to secure rural and regional support, and said the Greens would boost their engagement with ‘progressive’ businesses under her leadership.
“The party will choose a deputy leader this afternoon. Senator Sarah Hanson-Young and MP Adam Bandt are considered the frontrunners for the post. Senator Milne and Senator Brown said the leadership change did not alter the Greens’ minority government agreement with Labor, which had been signed by both leaders.
“Senator Brown said he had been considering retiring since the last election, and finally made the decision with his partner Paul Thomas two weeks ago while attending a global Greens conference in Senegal. ‘I am sad to leave but happy to go,’ he said in Canberra. ‘It’s a great reassurance to me that under Christine leadership this team will be in place.’ Senator Brown’s departure presents a huge challenge for the party, which faces the loss of its Senate balance of power position at the next election amid surging support for the Coalition and Bob Katter’s Australia Party.”
As I mentioned, his radical policies and beliefs have made him one of the more controversial figures in Australian politics. I have outlined his very radical agenda and ideas elsewhere:
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/02/15/thinking-about-the-greens/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2011/04/28/greens-the-party-of-death/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/08/16/green-atheist-soul-mates/
Given the huge shellacking Labor just received in the Queensland state election, with no gains at all for the Greens, and a certain death of Labor federally when that election is held, perhaps Brown was just reading the handwriting on the wall, and jumped ship before it was too late.
And his recent bizarre comments about “earthians” demonstrate he may well be losing his marbles even more than we all had thought. I wrote up his bizarre thoughts about global governance and the like here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2012/03/24/green-globalism/
As Miranda Divine wrote, “The intergalactic phones must be ringing off the hook now that Greens Leader Bob Brown has resigned. Was that nutty speech to his ‘Fellow Earthians,’ he gave in Hobart last month a sign that he was on his way out the door and giving vent to his kooky side?”
Or as another commentator quipped, perhaps ET has called him home. So Christine Milne is the new leader. Unfortunately she will not likely be much better than her predecessor. She too has her fair share of moonbeam ideas and harmful policies.
And plenty of other mad hatters still abound in the party. Lee Rhiannon for example is another nutter and radical who will continue to do plenty of damage. The NSW Senator is unashamed of her communist and pro-Soviet involvements, and is just another example of why the Greens are the most dangerous and whacko political party in the country.
This is one nut job party, and the sooner it is put out of its misery, the better. But the significance of this retirement lies deeper than just in one fruit loop party. Brown has of course been our de facto co-leader of the nation along with Julia. With Labor and the Greens in bed, this nation has been in a steep downward plunge.
With Brown moving on, this could simply mean more headaches for Labor. As mentioned, Brown is probably just being smart here, and sees what a disaster Labor now is, and it does not have a future with Julia at the helm. So he is getting out while the going is good – deserting a sinking ship at the right time.
Andrew Bolt discusses their marriage of convenience: “Gillard gave the Greens the carbon tax she’d promised never to impose, and a $10 billion green energy fund that business is now demanding be scrapped. Brown in return gave Gillard the support it would have offered her anyway. In a way, it was a deal that will destroy them both, and we can only suspect that Brown is getting out while the going is good.
“The electorate’s fury at the carbon tax grows only stronger. Labor is headed for a wipe out, and the Greens vote remains static at around 11 or 12 per cent. At the next election, the Greens will certainly lose its power in the Lower House and could even lose its balance of power in the Senate.
“Its carbon tax will be scrapped, and even Labor is now cutting back green waste as the great green movement slowly deflates, pricked by public anxiety about jobs and prices. Just this week, Gillard vowed to cut back on green waste, prompting Brown to rage that the ‘big exploiters’ now had Government’s ear.
“In Queensland’s election last month, the Greens vote went backwards. The Greens nirvana in Tasmania, where the Greens are in coalition with Labor, is turning sour, with the state recording the highest unemployment rate in the country. Brown himself has done himself damage this year by overreaching….
“All this already spelled a long-term decline of the Greens, who have done so much to make the public despise the ‘new paradigm’ of minority government. By leaving, Brown will only hasten that slow phut.” Yes quite right.
Or as another commentator puts it, “In essence, Brown’s resignation adds to the instability of an already shambolic government. The man with whom Gillard fashioned a partnership and compromised on policy is gone. She will be left scrambling again to prop up the very arrangements that keep her in power.
“And finally, let us not forget that Brown’s real legacy is a very bad one for the nation. He has used his influence to impose a carbon tax, waste massive amounts of taxpayers’ money on inefficient and ineffective green energy schemes, and to impose a ridiculous media inquiry among a range of other policy distractions. The Greens have been anti-development, anti-business and constantly disruptive when it comes to intelligent discussion of foreign policy and other issues. In the end Brown’s political career must be judged on how he has impeded economic progress rather than how he has enlivened a fringe protest movement.”
Yes it has been a nightmare for the past few years with these guys in charge. But hopefully this decision to leave may well mean the death knell of both Labor and the Greens. To which many of us will exclaim, ‘And not a moment too soon’.
Fantastic, great news thanks for the early bird announcement Bill. This could not be better, time to start waving them out. Labor and the Greens, Lets hope for greener pastures where sound government can make a recovery yet once again as John Howard did for this Nation.
Bill Heggers, Perth
“To which many of us will exclaim, ‘And not a moment too soon’.” And many of us will exclaim,’Three years too late’.
Kylie Anderson
I say thank God Bob Brown is on the way out. Unfortunately, his vacant seat will be filled with someone vacant of any real conviction about freedom.
Worth noting that Christine Milne is turning 60 soon so her own retirement can’t be far away, which will probably undermine her authority somewhat within her party.
I suspect that like the Australian Democrats, the Greens will start to run out of puff and will slowly be whittled away over a few elections. More importantly, by being in decline, their political influence will be significantly eroded, which is even better.
Lee Herridge
I think he has decided to bail because now that his ideas have been made legislation, he recognises how bad they actually are in real life vs moonbat uni thought bubbles. He is simply bailing early so he can sprook that his ideas were wonderful, but see, without him to implement them, they were done wrong. he gets a twofer win, good ideas, not his fault they were implemented wrong. Then he and his “partner” can sit back in their three chimney house, belching out smoke (evil co2 dontya know) and pat himself on the back that only he could have saved the earthians.
Just another megalomaniac self important utter nutter with inferiority complex which needs to be constantly rubbed by being center stage (notice the timing was during the COAG meeting, just before a scheduled PM press release, talk about me me me syndrome).
One good thing that “might” come from this, is the loopy greens might have exposed their agenda 21 hand and be about to be put out to pasture before the total destruction of Australia can be accomplished. (keeping optimistic here, but only just).
Neil Waldron
Hi Bill, A good article. About Brown you say, “His recent bizarre comments about ‘earthians’ demonstrate he may well be losing his marbles even more than we all had thought.”
However, realise that his discussion about extraterrestrial life is now quite mainstream, being the logical consequence of belief in evolution, which pervades everything in our culture. Evolution is just accepted as fact by so many people, especially in academia, even theological academia.
The thinking goes: We know that we evolved on earth by natural processes so it is certain that other intelligent beings have evolved on many of the billions of earth-like planets that must be out there somewhere.
And they have got governments, government institutions, universities and scientists putting money and effort into the idea. That is one of the big reasons for the billions of dollars spent on the space program–looking for life on Mars and moons of Saturn and Jupiter, etc. It’s also part of the billions being spent on the search for inhabitable planets. And thirdly, billions have been spent on the SETI project–the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence using telescopes and telescope arrays all over the world.
Even Dawkins who puts himself forward as the scientist par excellence has said that life on earth may have been seeded by aliens. Many other scientists have said the same thing, including the discoverer of the DNA double helix structure.
I agree that his ideas are bizarre and moonbattery, but he is not alone. A significant percentage of people would share his ideas.
Tas Walker
Sort of good news, me thinks. Spot on assessment, Bill.
But Brown can still wreak havoc before he goes. For example, he still has the bill in the Senate to override the Andrews Bill (Euthanasia Laws Act 1997) and he may yet push it.
Even if he doesn’t do so, it’s hard not to imagine that his replacement will be anything less than someone who would want to honour his legacy.
A beginning of their end, probably.
Paul Russell
Not to mention what a hypocrite he was, crowing about private party political donations and then…receiving the biggest private donation in Oz history.
Damien Spillane
Tas,
Agree completely! Why his “Earthian” speech was denounced as dingbats I really don’t know, because this whole notion of extra-terrestrials is mainstream. Billions of dollars have been put into the SETI programme, and Bob Brown was simply proposing a possible reason why it has so far turned up….zilch! The extra terrestrials have extincted themselves! Well, one could ‘prove’ that there are (or were) fairies at the bottom of my garden by such logic.
As to my own theory on his rather sudden resignation: he has lived openly in a homosexual relationship for quite a number of years now, and strong rumours have been around that he has been HIV +ve for years now. My guess is that it has developed into full-blown AIDS, and if so, he will be dead within a year to 18 months. But we will never know, as the media and the left side of politics will hush it up if that is so. After all, we would not want the truth about the homosexual lifestyle coming out into the open, would we?
Murray R Adamthwaite
Bob has browned out.
Ross McPhee
Out with someone bad and in with some one worse. There has to be reasons behind the scenes why this happened.
Ian Nairn
Bill,
Thought you might like to know about the latest from the US.
A few years ago, the left vilified Sara Palin for having children and working outside of the home, they claim she should have been at home looking after her kids, thus Republican women are bad/evil gender traitors.
Skip forward to this week, the left has just vilified Ann Romney for staying at home and not working outside the home. They claim she is out of touch and thus as a non outside of the home working mom are bad/evil gender traitors.
As you are much better at stringing out words better than me, I think this is fertile ground to expose the hypocrisy of the left and their real “war on women” especially if those women are on the conservative side of politics. Good meaty subject in my humble (not always humble by there ya have it) opinion.
Neil Waldron
“Bob Brown has been an unremittingly destructive force in the political life of this nation. His career in public policy has left not a single redeeming consequence. That this has not been more universally recognised can be placed at the collective feet of the Canberra press gallery, the broadcast media in particular more widely, and the assorted current affairs programs led by the ABC’s Lateline. I think I could safely say without fear of contradiction that before his famous Parliament House courtyard meltdown last May, he had never been subjected — in any media context, across the entire span of the previous 20 years — to even just rigorous questioning, far less the aggressive style adopted for interrogations of, I dunno, Tony Abbott, say? And the infamous one-armed man would not have to move to his feet to count the number of seriously critical comment pieces on Brown by mainstream gallery commentators.”
Niel, the problem with the lefties is that they want everyone to believe that whatever they say is gospel, no matter if it makes sense and no matter if what they say changes from week to week, remember the political memory is only – what – 3 weeks.
But, praise God he is gone. If we could only just persuade Christians not to vote for the Greens, then a large part of their votes would disappear and with it their political influence.
If Bob Brown was a sea captain and had left his sinking ship, he would be before a criminal court in no time. Maybe it would be a healthy thing if the law of the ocean could be applied to the political realm.
Many blessings,
Ursula Bennett
Bob Brown reminds me of captain jack sparrow, as he steps off his sinking boat and onto the dock.
Daniel Kempton
Perhaps he will come back with a new party to see intergalactic marriage legalized in Australia?
I have to admit I am completely bamboozled why 13% of Australians have supported the greens, is our water, especially in the cities contaminated with some brain altering pollutant?
Rob Withall
Dear Bill, Thank you for your article. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say about the Greens and Bob Brown. Good riddance! The country will be better off without him and his weird ideas. I remember years ago when he refused to help Baltic – Australians who were trying to highlight the plight of their countrymen enslaved by the Soviet Union. He wanted nothing to do with their tiny little paper which listed prisoners of conscience in the Baltic countries because it would harm the forests! Some had been sent to the gulags for making and distributing Holy Pictures and Christmas cards. Others for listening to the Voice of America or holding up a placard in the street. Ideally I wish the whole party would sink into oblivion. As for Christine Milne she is a disgrace to the farmers who work very hard to feed the world.
Patricia Halligan
I have some christian relatives that have voted green for a long time, all they have been able to see of the greens is the ‘save the environment’ side of them. The watermelon description of ‘green on the outside and red on the inside’ is apt. Some people seem only see the outside.
I voted for them once, many years ago, again for the same ‘save the environment’ reason. Not long after I saw the list of their political agenda, I’ve been warning my friends off them ever since.
It is a good thing to care for the environment, but their own polices in this area would mean food, timber and mined product shortage, things that ALL people use. But it’s also their other polices that turned me off: Same sex marriage, euthanasia, one world government. These things destroy many thing held dear: family, care for one another, our identity as a Nation and as a person.
They seem blissfully unaware as society crumbles around them, but as long they get; their ‘green energy’, the lock up all the forests, a stop intensive farming and change the nature of the law away from Gods law, they are happy.
As for me and my family, we shall serve the Lord.
Mark Lambert
Fantastic, great news thanks for the early bird announcement Bill. This could not be better, time to start waving them out. Labor and the Greens, Lets hope for greener pastures where sound government can make a recovery yet once again as John Howard did for this Nation.
Bill Heggers, Perth
“To which many of us will exclaim, ‘And not a moment too soon’.” And many of us will exclaim,’Three years too late’.
Kylie Anderson
I say thank God Bob Brown is on the way out. Unfortunately, his vacant seat will be filled with someone vacant of any real conviction about freedom.
Worth noting that Christine Milne is turning 60 soon so her own retirement can’t be far away, which will probably undermine her authority somewhat within her party.
I suspect that like the Australian Democrats, the Greens will start to run out of puff and will slowly be whittled away over a few elections. More importantly, by being in decline, their political influence will be significantly eroded, which is even better.
Lee Herridge
I think he has decided to bail because now that his ideas have been made legislation, he recognises how bad they actually are in real life vs moonbat uni thought bubbles. He is simply bailing early so he can sprook that his ideas were wonderful, but see, without him to implement them, they were done wrong. he gets a twofer win, good ideas, not his fault they were implemented wrong. Then he and his “partner” can sit back in their three chimney house, belching out smoke (evil co2 dontya know) and pat himself on the back that only he could have saved the earthians.
Just another megalomaniac self important utter nutter with inferiority complex which needs to be constantly rubbed by being center stage (notice the timing was during the COAG meeting, just before a scheduled PM press release, talk about me me me syndrome).
One good thing that “might” come from this, is the loopy greens might have exposed their agenda 21 hand and be about to be put out to pasture before the total destruction of Australia can be accomplished. (keeping optimistic here, but only just).
Neil Waldron
Hi Bill, A good article. About Brown you say, “His recent bizarre comments about ‘earthians’ demonstrate he may well be losing his marbles even more than we all had thought.”
However, realise that his discussion about extraterrestrial life is now quite mainstream, being the logical consequence of belief in evolution, which pervades everything in our culture. Evolution is just accepted as fact by so many people, especially in academia, even theological academia.
The thinking goes: We know that we evolved on earth by natural processes so it is certain that other intelligent beings have evolved on many of the billions of earth-like planets that must be out there somewhere.
And they have got governments, government institutions, universities and scientists putting money and effort into the idea. That is one of the big reasons for the billions of dollars spent on the space program–looking for life on Mars and moons of Saturn and Jupiter, etc. It’s also part of the billions being spent on the search for inhabitable planets. And thirdly, billions have been spent on the SETI project–the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence using telescopes and telescope arrays all over the world.
Even Dawkins who puts himself forward as the scientist par excellence has said that life on earth may have been seeded by aliens. Many other scientists have said the same thing, including the discoverer of the DNA double helix structure.
I agree that his ideas are bizarre and moonbattery, but he is not alone. A significant percentage of people would share his ideas.
Tas Walker
Sort of good news, me thinks. Spot on assessment, Bill.
But Brown can still wreak havoc before he goes. For example, he still has the bill in the Senate to override the Andrews Bill (Euthanasia Laws Act 1997) and he may yet push it.
Even if he doesn’t do so, it’s hard not to imagine that his replacement will be anything less than someone who would want to honour his legacy.
A beginning of their end, probably.
Paul Russell
Not to mention what a hypocrite he was, crowing about private party political donations and then…receiving the biggest private donation in Oz history.
Damien Spillane
Tas,
Agree completely! Why his “Earthian” speech was denounced as dingbats I really don’t know, because this whole notion of extra-terrestrials is mainstream. Billions of dollars have been put into the SETI programme, and Bob Brown was simply proposing a possible reason why it has so far turned up….zilch! The extra terrestrials have extincted themselves! Well, one could ‘prove’ that there are (or were) fairies at the bottom of my garden by such logic.
As to my own theory on his rather sudden resignation: he has lived openly in a homosexual relationship for quite a number of years now, and strong rumours have been around that he has been HIV +ve for years now. My guess is that it has developed into full-blown AIDS, and if so, he will be dead within a year to 18 months. But we will never know, as the media and the left side of politics will hush it up if that is so. After all, we would not want the truth about the homosexual lifestyle coming out into the open, would we?
Murray R Adamthwaite
Bob has browned out.
Ross McPhee
Out with someone bad and in with some one worse. There has to be reasons behind the scenes why this happened.
Ian Nairn
Bill,
Thought you might like to know about the latest from the US.
A few years ago, the left vilified Sara Palin for having children and working outside of the home, they claim she should have been at home looking after her kids, thus Republican women are bad/evil gender traitors.
Skip forward to this week, the left has just vilified Ann Romney for staying at home and not working outside the home. They claim she is out of touch and thus as a non outside of the home working mom are bad/evil gender traitors.
As you are much better at stringing out words better than me, I think this is fertile ground to expose the hypocrisy of the left and their real “war on women” especially if those women are on the conservative side of politics. Good meaty subject in my humble (not always humble by there ya have it) opinion.
Neil Waldron
“Bob Brown has been an unremittingly destructive force in the political life of this nation. His career in public policy has left not a single redeeming consequence. That this has not been more universally recognised can be placed at the collective feet of the Canberra press gallery, the broadcast media in particular more widely, and the assorted current affairs programs led by the ABC’s Lateline. I think I could safely say without fear of contradiction that before his famous Parliament House courtyard meltdown last May, he had never been subjected — in any media context, across the entire span of the previous 20 years — to even just rigorous questioning, far less the aggressive style adopted for interrogations of, I dunno, Tony Abbott, say? And the infamous one-armed man would not have to move to his feet to count the number of seriously critical comment pieces on Brown by mainstream gallery commentators.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/good-riddance-to-de-facto-pm-bob-brown/story-e6frg9k6-1226326249752
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Niel, the problem with the lefties is that they want everyone to believe that whatever they say is gospel, no matter if it makes sense and no matter if what they say changes from week to week, remember the political memory is only – what – 3 weeks.
But, praise God he is gone. If we could only just persuade Christians not to vote for the Greens, then a large part of their votes would disappear and with it their political influence.
If Bob Brown was a sea captain and had left his sinking ship, he would be before a criminal court in no time. Maybe it would be a healthy thing if the law of the ocean could be applied to the political realm.
Many blessings,
Ursula Bennett
Thanks guys
Two more good commentaries on this:
Miranda Devine: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/a-woodchip-off-the-old-block/story-e6frezz0-1226326560097
Piers Ackerman: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/piers-akerman-toxic-legacy-is-all-brown-leaves-behind/story-e6frezz0-1226326574728
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Bob Brown reminds me of captain jack sparrow, as he steps off his sinking boat and onto the dock.
Daniel Kempton
Perhaps he will come back with a new party to see intergalactic marriage legalized in Australia?
I have to admit I am completely bamboozled why 13% of Australians have supported the greens, is our water, especially in the cities contaminated with some brain altering pollutant?
Rob Withall
Dear Bill, Thank you for your article. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say about the Greens and Bob Brown. Good riddance! The country will be better off without him and his weird ideas. I remember years ago when he refused to help Baltic – Australians who were trying to highlight the plight of their countrymen enslaved by the Soviet Union. He wanted nothing to do with their tiny little paper which listed prisoners of conscience in the Baltic countries because it would harm the forests! Some had been sent to the gulags for making and distributing Holy Pictures and Christmas cards. Others for listening to the Voice of America or holding up a placard in the street. Ideally I wish the whole party would sink into oblivion. As for Christine Milne she is a disgrace to the farmers who work very hard to feed the world.
Patricia Halligan
I have some christian relatives that have voted green for a long time, all they have been able to see of the greens is the ‘save the environment’ side of them. The watermelon description of ‘green on the outside and red on the inside’ is apt. Some people seem only see the outside.
I voted for them once, many years ago, again for the same ‘save the environment’ reason. Not long after I saw the list of their political agenda, I’ve been warning my friends off them ever since.
It is a good thing to care for the environment, but their own polices in this area would mean food, timber and mined product shortage, things that ALL people use. But it’s also their other polices that turned me off: Same sex marriage, euthanasia, one world government. These things destroy many thing held dear: family, care for one another, our identity as a Nation and as a person.
They seem blissfully unaware as society crumbles around them, but as long they get; their ‘green energy’, the lock up all the forests, a stop intensive farming and change the nature of the law away from Gods law, they are happy.
As for me and my family, we shall serve the Lord.
Mark Lambert