[Greens-Media] Brown blip growing on Coalition's radar

[Bennett, Ebony (Sen B. Brown)]

Last week the four Greens' Senators launched their campaign to "Rescue
the Senate" from the Coalition majority. 
The article below appears in the opinion section of today's Sydney
Morning Herald. www.smh.com.au
Letters to the editor can be sent to: letters at smh.com.au
Brown blip growing on Coalition's radar
Sydney Morning Herald
Louise Dodson
*	August 8, 2006
JOHN Howard and Kim Beazley yesterday made it clear to their respective
party rooms the contest has already begun for the election, expected in
just over a year. It will be fought on the economy, energy and
industrial relations.
While most attention will be focused on that contest, the secondary
tussle for control of the Senate will be important in determining the
fate of whatever government is elected and whether its policies are
ultimately passed.
To the surprise of many, in 2004 the Coalition won not only an increased
majority in the House of Representatives, but also control of the Senate
- the first time this had happened in
25 years. As a result, in the eyes of some people the Government has had
unfettered power in Parliament to not only introduce policies seen by
some voters as stretching its election mandate, but also to curb the
functions of the Senate.
The Senate's role will be a central issue of the election campaign of
the Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, who combines an appeal to
left-wing idealism with hard-headed political acumen.
He is hoping to capitalise on voter concern that with a government
majority, the Senate has become a rubber stamp rather than an effective
house of review. Underlying his campaign will be the promotion of the
importance of a third force in politics to balance the Coalition and the
Labor Party. With the Australian Democrats - who previously held this
role - marginalised, Brown is arguing that the Greens will fill the gap.
They could do what the Democrats' founder, Don Chipp, said his party
would do: keep the bastards honest.
Another factor Brown is trying to capitalise on is the potential for
voter disenchantment with the policies of the main parties, for example,
Labor's likely move to scrap its existing "no new uranium mines" policy,
and the Liberals' difficulties with asylum seekers.
A worldwide surge in concern with issues long pushed by Brown has yet to
have a major impact on Australia, but it could be that the times suit
the Greens' agenda. After the hottest northern summer on record,
environmental issues such as global warming are attracting greater
prominence in Britain, and there is growing opposition there and in the
US to the military involvement in Iraq.
While the Democrats are fading from political view, Brown seems to be
increasingly on the Government's radar. On July 11, the Minister for
Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Eric Abetz, wrote to the chairman
of the Register of Senators' Interests Committee, Senator Ruth Webber,
to complain about Brown's public disclosures of gifts in relation to
donations to assist his long-running court case to protect endangered
species in south-east Tasmania's Wielangta Forest.
The letter refers to Brown's disclosure on the register of $17,000 in
anonymous donations, in the amounts of $10,000, $5000, $1000 and two of
$500. It dismisses Brown's explanation that the donations were
originally made anonymously because they were made online to the R.J.
Brown Forest Account Wielangta Fighting Fund's bank account.
"I therefore ask the committee to examine and comment on the issue of
Senator Brown effectively soliciting anonymous donations by permitting
online donors to withhold their names and by not insisting that donors
making direct bank transfers provide their names," the Abetz letter
states. "In a press release issued following my raising the issue of
anonymous donations, Senator Brown said that he intends asking the bank
to trace the source of these anonymous donations. Given the privacy
provisions pertaining to bank records, I believe such a request is
highly optimistic."
But Brown's optimism appears to have been reasonably well placed. On
July 4 - seven days before the letter - he updated the register to list
all but one of the donors. Only one donor, of $1000, remains anonymous.
Abetz has also raised with the Australian Electoral Commission, in a
letter dated July 18, an argument that the Wielangta Fighting Fund
should be regarded as an associated entity and therefore comply with the
disclosure provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Abetz even
takes issue with what he refers to as "the inflated prices paid for
Brown memorabilia" at a Wielangta Forest fund-raiser. This included
$1000 for a pebble picked up by the Greens leader.
So far Brown has eluded Abetz's pursuit, so it seems to be a case of the
jealous green-eyed monster inspiring Abetz to monster the Greens leader.
Louise Dodson is the Herald's chief political correspondent.



--------------------------------------------------------------
Ebony Bennett
Media Adviser
Office of Greens Senator Bob Brown
Mobile: 0409 164 603
Ph: (02) 6277 3170
Fax: (02) 6277 3185
ebony.bennett at aph.gov.au