Interview with Greens Leader, Senator Bob Brown

Sky News Sunday Agenda program, 15th November 2009

Helen Dalley: As emissions trading goes back to the senate, the Australian Greens may
yet have a big role to play in the eventual outcome. Putting added pressure on the
major parties, the Greens have commissioned a Galaxy poll which shows strong support
for the Greens’ position. Their leader, Senator Bob Brown, joins us now from our
Adelaide studio.
Bob Brown, thanks very much for joining us.

Bob Brown: Morning, Helen.

Helen Dalley: Morning, what does this national poll show?

Bob Brown: Well it shows the majority of people - 54% to 35% - support the scientists
and the environmentalists in wanting a minimum target of 25 percent reduction in
Greenhouse gases by 2020. The government’s going for a very paltry five percent, and
the majority of people are saying, no, let’s get behind the 25 percent which is where the
Greens are placed, and the amendments we’ll be putting to the government’s legislation
would lift it to a 25 percent minimum reduction by 2020 over 1990 levels. The poll is also
indicating that when you get into younger age groups, that goes to a huge majority.

Helen Dalley: 70 percent of younger people want a greater reduction, compared to 20%
who support the Government’s 5%.

Bob Brown: Yes, young people see this as their future that’s being handled by
politicians at the moment, and they are very anxious about it. They read the science,
they understand the issue better than many of us who are in older age groups, and they
want greater action. And they understand that the scientists are saying, we have to be
reducing Greenhouse gases within the next few years dramatically worldwide, and we
have to be aiming at almost zero production by mid century. But that means much
bigger targets than five percent. You know, the five percent target of the government,
and if the opposition looks like it’s moving towards some form of agreement with the
government, will simply take us back to about the turn of century levels when the earth
was already heating up. It’s not going to solve the problem; it’ll lock it in, and that is
very, very daunting when you look at the impact that climate change will have on
Australia’s economy, its employment, as well as its environment and lifestyle.

Helen Dalley: Bob Brown, so you’re saying that a majority of people, just setting aside
the young people result, 54 percent want a much greater target to cut emissions than
what the government is proposing?

Bob Brown: Yes, but it’s a reasonable target. It’s the target that the worlds’ scientists in
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has been the world think tank
since the early 1990s on this, say is basic to us saving the planet from dangerous,
catastrophic climate change, with worse bush fires, worse cyclones, much bigger
droughts, much more damaging storms, and of course that sea level rise that Penny
Wong said yesterday, her scientific groups analysed that, will affect a quarter of a million
Australian homes, $63 billion to try and deal with it this century. These are real and
oncoming prospects that we have a responsibility to deal with. The Greens are doing
that according to the best scientific evidence. Whereas the government and opposition

Sunday Agenda 15th November, 2009 Senator Bob Brown

are under the impact of the big polluters, the coal industry and the other industries, and
are getting it wrong.

Helen Dalley: Alright, well just before we go onto that, the government has said that the
five percent target is just a minimum and that they could increase it. But are you saying
you don’t think it will be increased from there?

Bob Brown: Not if the news from APEC for example . . .They’re not looking at targets at
all. And all the big polluters, whether it be the United States government or the
Australian government or other governments around the world, are moving in on weak
politicians who won’t handle this issue in a way that’s going to make sure the future is
safe. But let me say this. Amongst great economists these days, including Sir Nicholas
Stern, formerly from the World Bank, is the very clear prediction that those countries that
get it right and that take up environmental technology to tackle climate change, are going
to have the best, the most burgeoning economy, and therefore the best job prospects in
the coming decades. It’s the ones who get it wrong on climate change that are going to
damage their economy. And the Greens are taking the strong stand of minimum 25
percent. We should be aiming at 40 percent reduction by 2020, and that would give
Australia a lead in the future economy which is going to be based on environmental
excellence in technology.

Helen Dalley: Alright, on the political side, certainly the scientists and people like Sir
Nicholas Stern are saying those things, but on the political side, as you mention, APEC
is now very much moving away from the 50 percent target reduction that they had talked
about, and they’re now saying they’ll call it substantial cuts, or they’ll commit to
substantial cuts. Doesn’t that mean on the political side, Bob Brown, that you are out of
step?

Bob Brown: No, it doesn’t. I mean politics is about reality. But we’ve got in APEC a
collection of politicians, if they take that line, who are quite spinelessly giving in to the big
polluters, the big oil companies and the big coal production companies and the big
heavy polluting companies. We see that in Australia where Kevin Rudd’s proposal
would give $16.5 billion, which should be going to the rest of the economy and tax
payers generally, to the biggest polluters on the basis that the more you pollute, the
more you get. And many of these corporations are owned overseas. That money will
drain out overseas. We think it should be going productively into the Australian
economy and making it safe from climate change. It’s very daunting what’s happening
at APEC, and it’s just a pity we don’t have a government taking a world lead on the way
to Copenhagen to help give security to this country and other countries round the planet,
in the face of dangerous and potentially catastrophic climate change coming in the
coming decades, and certainly by the end of this century.

Helen Dalley: Bob Brown, doesn’t the government really need to take into account the
impacts on the whole of the economy? And there will be a cost to our economy if we
have rapid change and big cuts to emissions. They have to manage that for all the
stakeholders in the economy.

Bob Brown: Yes, and you do that best by looking at where the economy is going and
giving it the best chances possible. You know, when we go to war, we change the
economy by 5 to 15 percent to put it across to a war effort. What’s required here is a 1
or 2 percent adjustment to the economy to get us into a much safer and non-polluting

Sunday Agenda 15th November, 2009 Senator Bob Brown

future. But the pressure of those big lobbies from the coal industry, the logging industry
and the cement industry and so on, is preventing that from happening. We heard from
your last interviewee that we can make those changes, they’re not really substantial until
the lobbyists come out. And what’s at stake here is an economy in which Australia could
be leading the world. Germany changed laws on a range of environmental issues
including to tackle Greenhouse gases, and the strength of its economy, 250,000 jobs
and a multi hundred billion dollar export industry has followed that. It’s given Germany
great resilience and strength compared to some of its European counterparts, and made
it the world leader in export of environmental technology.

Helen Dalley: Alright . . .

Bob Brown: . . . But Australia, which is the sunny country, look we’ve got this huge
potential. The sunniest country on earth is held back by the fact that we’ve got a
government that wants to put billions more, Labor governments in state and federal
level, into exporting more coal, more quickly at great threat to the planet.

Helen Dalley: But I mean you could argue for a long time about that, because Australia
has a great deal of coal and we do sell it to people around the world who want it, and it
makes us an enormous amount of money for the economy.

Bob Brown: Well it makes a lot of money for big coal corporations, 75 percent owned
overseas.

Helen Dalley: Alright, can I just take you onto another issue, Bob Brown?

Bob Brown: Certainly.

Helen Dalley: Minister Penny Wong looks set to permanently exclude agriculture, so
farmers won’t have to buy permits for their carbon emissions. What’s your view about
that? Do you accept that?

Bob Brown: We don’t view farmers buying permits as necessarily the best way to go.
We do think that there needs to be a lot of work put into establishing the Greenhouse
gas emissions from agriculture and finding ways to reduce that. And there’s a great
potential on the land in Australia for being part of this revolution of the economy, for
example, by the placement of big solar baseload power stations to replace coal, to
provide the energy and the power and the electricity that we require into the future. But
we’ve just seen a major such investment at Mildura go down the tube for want of
backing.

Helen Dalley: Alright, what do you think of what this move could mean?

Bob Brown: We’ll have to see the details of that, and we’ll be dealing with that in the
senate in the next two weeks.

Helen Dalley: Sorry, Bob Brown, could I just say that backdown could get an ETS
across the line, it could get it passed and some agreement between the Coalition and
the government and then Australia would take a scheme endorsed by the parliament, it
would take that to the world meeting in Copenhagen. Isn’t that a good outcome?

Sunday Agenda 15th November, 2009 Senator Bob Brown

Bob Brown: No, it is a recipe for failure. Five percent- certainly what’s happening here
is the Labor Party and the Coalition coming together under the pressure of the big
polluters with their $16.5 billion plan for polluters, and they’ll expand that I have no
doubt, are going to Copenhagen with a prescription for failure for this planet in tackling
climate change. It is very daunting. No doubt we’ll have the press gallery I reckon
saying, oh an agreement, because an agreement’s all that matters. No it’s not, it’s the
quality of the agreement. And what the Greens are saying, what the majority of
Australians are saying in this Galaxy poll, is we should be in line with the reasoned
position of the considered scientists and aiming at a minimum 25 percent. This is
government and opposition in lock-step under the pressure of the big lobbying agencies
to come up with a recipe which fails the future of Australia and the planet.

Helen Dalley: Bob Brown, we will have to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us.

Bob Brown: Thank you, Helen.

Helen Dalley: Have a good few weeks in parliament.

Bob Brown: Thank you.

Sunday Agenda 15th November, 2009 Senator Bob Brown