From Meet the Press October 3rd
JENNIFER HEWITT: One of the parties that's running on a family program is Family First and they are actually saying that you are extreme on all sorts of issues. They don't seem to be very impressed with your family policies at all and you are complaining about their ads. But you do have extreme views on drugs, don't you?
BOB BROWN: No, we don't. Let me just talk about Family First. It's an un-Christian group. It seems to be motivated by hate. It has been talking to the PM about how to get extra representation in the parliament because the PM wants to use Family First to get control of the Senate. Through its preferences or if Family First senators are elected, he can get total control of the Parliament, including the Senate. Coming back on to the drugs policy, Family First was asked about that in Tasmania this week and doesn't have one. That's a sign of a party that's covering up a lot. The Greens policies...
PAUL BONGIORNO: But the point...
BOB BROWN: ..are to minimise the harm to young Australians. We have a death toll of one young Australian per day on average at the moment.
PAUL BONGIORNO: But doesn't Family First's objections come down to the fact that your policy would have marijuana sold over the counter?
BOB BROWN: Well, no, it doesn't. It comes down to the hard drugs problem where we're seeing a death toll. That's not coming out of marijuana - the biggest death toll in Australia, by the way...
PAUL BONGIORNO: But you do have that view on marijuana, don't you?
BOB BROWN: No, I don't have that view.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well, your party does.
BOB BROWN: Of decriminalising. That's very different to the legalising...
JENNIFER HEWITT: I guess it is controlled availability in appropriate venues. What's the difference?
BOB BROWN: That's right. That is harm minimisation, but this is not legalising as Family First would have it. Let me just say this - the prohibitio...-
PAUL BONGIORNO: Just quickly, Bob, we're just about out of time on this segment.
BOB BROWN: ..increases the death toll of young Australians. Family First, I believe, their policies actually threaten young Australians, whereas the Greens are trying to minimise that threat.
MALCOLM FARR: Senator Brown, your preference allocations are this marvellous magical mystery tour all around the shop. You don't go for Family First, but you do put at the top of your Queensland Senate list Mr Free Marijuana. You preference the Social Alliance ahead of the Democrats, which is an interesting matter of weighing up the two parties. But can I go to Labor Party preferences? In the seat of Brand you won't give preferences to Kim Beazley, but in the seat of Wentworth you are giving preferences to Labor's David Patch. What's Kim done to you?
BOB BROWN: Well, the local groups determine those preferences, Malcolm, but let me go back to your first...
MALCOLM FARR: But you're the leader of the party, aren't you?
BOB BROWN: No, no, I'm not a dictator. We've got a democracy in the Greens. We've got 8,000 members and we've got branches which make up their own mind on a whole range of factors and issues. But the preferences are secondary to us to getting primaries. But let me go back to your first assertion. People have to know this, that in the Senate in various States, if they vote for the Coalition or the Labor Party or the Democrats, they can put in a far-right candidate. Not the Greens. Because the preference flow goes away from the Greens. The only safe way of getting the Greens into the Senate is to vote for the Greens. Let's talk about preference flows. Did you know Labor flows in Victoria and Tasmania go to the Family First before the Greens? The Coalition does in almost all cases. The Democrats give their preferences to Family First before the Greens in South Australia. So you've get to be very, very aware - voters have to be very, very aware of all over the shop coming from those other parties.
MALCOLM FARR: As soon as we have the two leaders in there, we'll have a shot at it. But you are here now. Can you say that your preference allocations are merely the mechanics of pragmatism to get the votes in, that they're not representative of anything else, that you're not favouring a particular ideology in one party over another?
BOB BROWN: No, I can't because...
MALCOLM FARR: So Mr Free Marijuana is there not just for pragmatic reasons, but because you reckon he's got a pretty good case to make to the people.
BOB BROWN: In Queensland I would reckon because there's a whole range of other policies that are important to the Greens there which have stacked up. For example, better funding for public education and school.
MALCOLM FARR: From Mr Free Marijuana?
BOB BROWN: I would presume so. I would presume they are better than the Opposition's or the Government's.
JENNIFER HEWITT: Bob, in practice, though, the Greens really act as a huge advantage to the Labor Party, don't they?
BOB BROWN: In practice, the Greens voters do go, as Sol Lebovic was saying, Jennifer, 70-30 to the Labor Party. But just yesterday an elderly lady in Launceston asked me how to put her preference, how she should vote if she voted Green, so her preference went to the Government. It's a mixed bag and it very much indicates where people have come from in the past, and that's one of the wonders of our democracy.
JENNIFER HEWITT: But why are you so antagonistic to Family First? Aren't they doing on the right what you're just really doing on the left?
BOB BROWN: Except we are open. Family First policies aren't out there. They've had secret discussions with the PM. They are about...
JENNIFER HEWITT: What, as opposed to your discussions with the Labor Party?
BOB BROWN: We are open about it. We tell people what we do. That's the big difference. They don't say where their funding is coming from. We do. It's a very different kettle of fish and I'm proud that the Greens are as open and responsible and direct with the electorate as we are.
JENNIFER HEWITT: You seem to be fairly conspiratorial about Family First.
BOB BROWN: Yes, I am, because I think it's a conspiratorial set-up. I think they haven't been open and honest about what they are doing, for example about the extreme right religious connections behind it, and I think they should be.
MALCOLM FARR: Speaking of the extreme right, I don't know what you'd gain from having a look at your voting record. Over the last three years the two Greens senators, yourself and Senator Nettle, voted for the Liberal six times, you voted with One Nation 75 times, you voted with Brian Harradine 106 times. You don't mind nudging up to the extreme right occasionally, do you?
BOB BROWN: You've got it back to front, Malcolm. You've got it totally back to front again.
MALCOLM FARR: Have I?
BOB BROWN: Yes. What you are saying there is on many occasions the cross benches voted together and that's included One Nation and/or Brian Harradine supporting what the Greens were doing.
MALCOLM FARR: They were supporting you?
BOB BROWN: That's right. I can tell you in the main, when it comes to such issues - and let me go back to it, because it's so important - as not draining funds away from the public education system or properly funding hospitals or the environment, very often those components of the Senate vote the same way.
PAUL BONGIORNO: OK. We're right out of time. Thank you very much for joining us today, Senator Bob Brown, and all the best for next Saturday.
