Transcript of media conference with Bob Brown, founder and patron of the Bob Brown Foundation, Parliament Lawns, Hobart, 4 June 2021.

Bob Brown

Senator Jonathan Duniam, the lead Liberal senator in Tasmania, has withdrawn and apologised for defamatory remarks about the Bob Brown Foundation. We don’t engage in violence and we don’t engage in tree spiking. And the police have closed a case of alleged tree spiking some time ago, which had nothing to do with the Bob Brown Foundation. But here we had Senator Duniam on Sky News, claiming that we encouraged violence, I think involved, and he’s had to withdraw, because he was utterly wrong. And that was defamatory. But this is not the first time. This is third time I can remember having to ward off allegations from the police, from – in the past – from a regional newspaper, and now from this Liberal senator, that the Greens or environmentalists have been involved in such things as tree spiking. It is simply not the case. I think behind Senator Duniam’s outburst is the wish that…let me put that again, I think behind these claims against our foundation, and environmentalists generally, is a wish by the other side that they can catch people being violent, because they know that that would be a public winner for them. But we are studiously peaceful in our operation. It’s the logging which creates the violence in the forests and the destruction of wildlife, and the loss of Tasmania’s natural beauty. That’s what we’re up against. So the appeal here is to Senator Duniam, and the Liberal and Labor MPs in both state and federal parliaments who are backing the destruction in the Tarkine, let’s debate the environment. Let’s debate this destruction. very unpopular as it is in Tasmania and around Australia, and not try to falsely vilify the messenger.

Journalist – Elliott

(inaudible)

Bob Brown

Senator Duniam and his colleagues need to know that they can’t break the law. And that if they do, we’ll pursue them. It’s as simple as that. We get the finger waggled at us, but they also are in a rules-based system, a laws-based system. And we’ll defend ourselves because we’re here to defend Tasmania’s wild and scenic beauty. And that that’s important to us.

Tasmanian Times

What does it say about the Liberal Party that their lead candidate, only recently endorsed in fact to the top of the ticket, is prepared to lie publicly on national television?

Bob Brown

Well, it’s the second time that Senator Duniam has had to withdraw false and defamatory statements. He’s had to do that for Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens’ national environmental spokesperson he defamed on the same program. I think they need to look at themselves and understand that this is not good enough for senior politicians. After all, Senator Duniam is an Assistant Minister for Forestry. And he needs to behave better than this if he’s to bring the due honour to the ministry that ordinary people expect of it.

Journalist – Elliott

The Liberals have also had a candidate recently who had to withdraw due to misleading claims about coronavirus. Why do you think the party is keeping Senator Duniam around?

Bob Brown

Well, I think the Liberals have just put Senator Duniam top of their Senate ticket for the next election. And here he is lying about our foundation and about Senator Sarah Hanson-Young on national television and he’s had to withdraw that and apologise, and we accept that apology. But I think the voters will think twice before voting for this team at the next federal election, which is coming down the line after all. We need to keep this debate about the issue at hand, which is whether or not the nation’s greatest rainforest should be being destroyed in the way it is by the Liberals. They’re in office. They’re responsible. They’re taking away from Tasmania, and we’re defending this beautiful heirloom for Tasmania’s future.

Tasmanian Times

There was an incident on Friday where Guy Barnett said ‘it’s disgraceful, if proved, that a protester had assaulted a police officer’. Can you tell us from your point of view, what has been going on at your blockade of the mine site in the Tarkine?

Bob Brown

Scrupulously we have been peaceful. And there has been no other case than that. And I think that we have a group of people who are behind the violation: they’re invading these forests, or they’re pursuing and backing it, who want to reverse the odium of that and put it on to us peaceful environmentalists and they’re not going to get away with it. I might add that the public needs to know that the costs that Senator Duniam has to pay, our legal costs, are picked up by the taxpayers. So it’s doubly bad that Senator Duniam has his first first of all vilified peaceful environmentalist, but secondly, takes from the public taxpayers’ funds to cover his costs. He should have been more scrupulous with the truth at the outset.

Journalist – Elliott

Should he tell us how much those costs are?

Bob Brown

Yes. Those costs, well they will become I think public. We will make that public if he doesn’t.

Journalist – Elliott

And what’s happening in the court today?

Bob Brown

We’re in the Supreme Court today to reverse a decision that we should pay our own costs for taking Sustainable Timbers Tasmania to court to establish that we had a right to run the ultra marathon at Waratah earlier this year. That ultra marathon was a huge success. It brought a lot of money and business and delight into northwest Tasmania. And we had a right to be in those forests, the court established that. Sustainable Timbers Tasmania should be paying the costs of having done so much to try and prevent us from going into the forests where we were legally entitled to be.

Journalist – Elliott

And I was wondering what was your view on the Tourism Master Plan that was revealed earlier this week?

Bob Brown

Overriding and ridden through the Tourism Master Plan is this government handing our national parks across to private enterprise against the public interest, so that top payers can helicopter in and out of resorts built by private enterprise for private profit in parks which are there for the people, for ordinary people. And infrastructure in those parks should be totally put there by government for all people to enjoy. So it’s called a ‘master plan’, but it’s a mis-plan, because it advantages wealthy profit makers against ordinary people.