Please delete wrote on May 18^th, 2011 at 1:10pm:


Nup, they don`t handle scrutiny well at all.  Observe the feeble attempt at diversion, above.

Tony Bradshaw wrote on May 18^th, 2011 at 1:16pm:

Funny too that all the guy did was push booby for the truth of his own words.

I did like how brown the clown tried to deny his party was hell bent on shutting down the coal industry, maybe he should read his own policies. 


He was squirming out of being forced to tell the truth, nice work but I thought he could have gone in harder.


$50 bil a year from exporting solar panels, good one brown you idiot. 

BOB BROWN: Absolutely. We've had a mature discussion about how to move Australia to a carbon price and there's Independents, Greens, the Labor Government, remember Tony Abbott sat out of this. Tony Abbott's prescription is to give the polluters the money off the taxpayers. What we're moving to here through a tax on polluters or, and a trading scheme, is to take the money from the polluters and give it to the householders and general economy and renewable energy and people like that and that's where I think the problem is for Tony Abbott. He's backing the wrong horse. He's saying, "Take the money off the people, give it to the polluters." We're saying, "Take it off the polluters and make sure you look after the people."

CHRIS UHLMANN: But you'll take the money off the polluters which are also big employers and they will take it off the people. Isn't that the case?

BOB BROWN: Really?

CHRIS UHLMANN: Well in...

BOB BROWN: In Germany where they've done this, I just reiterate 250,000 jobs created. Are we going to look after the 68,000 jobs on the Great Barrier Reef? That's twice as many as in the whole of the coal industry. Are we going to look after the manufacturing sector in Australia and make sure it's got the advantage of being a world leader in an age where you have to take an ecological lead and look after the jobs there or are we going to take the Abbott view which is very last century and is going to leave us at the back of the pack.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Briefly, the jobs in Germany came at a cost of 205,000 Euros each by way of subsidies. Is that a fair price for a job?

BOB BROWN: Whatever way you look at it, Chris, they are on to a winner and want to take it forward and if you're talking about subsidies, how about the $11 billion a year in fossil fuel subsidies go off taxpayers to that industry at the moment with a very, very sparse return in terms of jobs.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Do you believe that markets are an efficient way of pricing things? Because we've just had the experience of the financial crisis so you say this is where we should go but are markets the best way to do?

BOB BROWN: In the financial crisis it was the Greens who took the responsible point of view that we should back the Government's stimulus package and that saved 600,000 jobs and lot of small businesses with it. The Abbott crew opposed that.

CHRIS UHLMANN: But are markets the best way of pricing this?

BOB BROWN: The point I'm making here is we backed free enterprise but Government is there to look after the interests of the people who vote us in and to regulate and we've done that very successfully and the Greens have shown a great deal more responsibility there than the Abbott coalition.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Now you've handed me some figures, you've done some polling, you think that this the move that you're making on carbon pricing is very popular. Why is that?

BOB BROWN: The Galaxy poll is part of an omnibus poll done on the weekend, Chris, showed that where you ask people do they think the polluters should be paying or do they think the polluters should be given money to achieve a reduction in their greenhouse gas emissions. People by more than three to one in Australia say no, the polluters should pay. In other words, Tony Abbott is on a loser.

CHRIS UHLMANN: You didn't ask consumers whether or not they were prepared to pay themselves. You did't ask consumers whether or not they were prepared to pay a price that might be passed on by an electricity company.

BOB BROWN: You mustn't underestimate the intelligence of the Australian people. They know if the money comes off the polluters that's going to be available for renewable energy and to be able to shelter them from increased prices due to that polluter-pays principle. The problem for Tony Abbott is he's going to take $30 billion out of the taxpayers' coffers over the next 10 years and give it to the polluters and to re-jigging the economy. That's going to cost households $720 per household 10 years from now while the polluters haven't paid a thing. That's the wrong way to go.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Bob Brown, finally on Libya, what is the mission? What is the Coalition setting out to achieve?

BOB BROWN: To stop the destruction of a city of a million people, of Benghazi, by this madman, Gaddafi, who's said he would hunt people down to their closets, there would be blood running in the streets, he'd show no mercy.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Should he not go because of a no-fly zone, should the allied forces try and take him out themselves?

BOB BROWN: Well, you know, if you asked me, I wouldn't advise that to be their mission but I think the sooner Mr Gaddafi, like Idi Amin, is of the scene, the better for the people of Libya and the better for the world. Very difficult decision but the Greens, as with our very early support for action in East Timor, believe that this is the right way to go. There's all sorts of complexities coming down the line but we support it.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Bob Brown, thank you.

Dsmithy70 wrote on May 18^th, 2011 at 1:19pm:



How about, trying to divert attention away fron the content of the interview, and away from the topic of the thread?

bridonta wrote on May 18^th, 2011 at 1:33pm:

He also seems to believe that people hired by an international company, do their work for free, because aparantly all the money goes overseas and all inventory purchases are made to their country and shipped in. lol what a tosser.