No commentary required.
As you will see.
From the Greens official website (my emphasis added):
Bob Brown delivers the 3rd annual Green Oration
23 Mar | General
The full text of Bob’s speech is below:
Fellow Earthians,
Never before has the Universe unfolded such a flower as our collective human intelligence, so far as we know.
Nor has such a one-and-only brilliance in the Universe stood at the brink of extinction, so far as we know.
We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the Universe exploded into being.
So far, it seems like we are the lone thinkers in this vast, expanding Universe.
However, recent astronomy tells us that there are trillions of other planets circling Sunlike stars in the immensity of the Universe, millions of them friendly to life. So why has no one from elsewhere in the Cosmos contacted us?
Surely some people-like animals have evolved elsewhere. Surely we are not, in this crowded reality of countless other similar planets, the only thinking beings to have turned up. Most unlikely! So why isn’t life out there contacting us? Why aren’t the intergalactic phones ringing?
Here is one sobering possibility for our isolation: maybe life has often evolved to intelligence on other planets with biospheres and every time that intelligence, when it became able to alter its environment, did so with catastrophic consequences. Maybe we have had many predecessors in the Cosmos but all have brought about their own downfall.
That’s why they are not communicating with Earth. They have extincted themselves. They have come and gone. And now it’s our turn.
Whatever has happened in other worlds, here we are on Earth altering this bountiful biosphere, which has nurtured us from newt to Newton.
Unlike the hapless dinosaurs, which went to utter destruction when a rocky asteroid plunged into Earth sixty-five million years ago, this accelerating catastrophe is of our own making.
So, just as we are causing that destruction, we could be fostering its reversal. Indeed, nothing will save us from ourselves but ourselves.
We need a strategy. We need action based on the reality that this is our own responsibility – everyone’s responsibility.
So democracy – ensuring that everyone is involved in deciding Earth’s future – is the key to success.
For comprehensive Earth action, an all-of-the-Earth representative democracy is required. That is, a global parliament.
In his Gettysburg address of 1859, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed: ‘We here highly resolve… that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.’
153 years later, let us here in Hobart, and around the world, highly resolve that through global democracy we shall save the Earth from perishing.
For those who oppose global democracy the challenge is clear: how else would you manage human affairs in this new century of global community, global communications and shared global destiny?
Recently, when I got back to bed at Liffey after ruminating under the stars for hours on this question, Paul enquired, ‘did you see a comet?’ ‘Yes’, I replied, ‘and it is called ‘Global Democracy’.
A molten rock from space destroyed most life on the planet those sixty-five million years ago. Let us have the comet of global democracy save life on Earth this time.
Nine years ago, after the invasion of Iraq which President George W. Bush ordered to promote democracy over tyranny, I proposed to the Australian Senate a means of expanding democracy without invasion. Let Australia take the lead in peacefully establishing a global parliament. I explained that this ultimate democracy would decide international issues. I had in mind nuclear proliferation, international financial transactions and the plight of our one billion fellow people living in abject poverty.
In 2003 our other Greens Senator, Kerry Nettle, seconded the motion but we failed to attract a single other vote in the seventy-six seat chamber. The four other parties – the Liberals, the Nationals, Labor and the Democrats – voted ‘no!’. As he crossed the floor to join the ‘noes’, another senator called to me: ‘Bob, don’t you know how many Chinese there are?’.
Well, yes I did. Surely that is the point. There are just 23 million Australians amongst seven billion equal Earthians. Unless and until we accord every other citizen of the planet, friend or foe, and regardless of race, gender, ideology or other characteristic, equal regard we, like them, can have no assured future.
2500 years ago the Athenians, and 180 years ago the British, gave the vote to all men of means. After Gettysburg, the United States made the vote available to all men, regardless of means. One man, one vote.
But what about women, Louisa Lawson asked in 1889: “Pray, why should one half of the world govern the other half?”
So, in New Zealand, in 1893, followed by South Australia in 1895, and the new Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, universal suffrage – the equal vote for women as well as men – was achieved.
In this second decade of the Twenty First Century, most people on Earth get to vote in their own countries. Corruption and rigging remain common place but the world believes in democracy. As Winston Churchill observed in 1947,
‘Many forms of government have been tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’
Yet, in Australia and other peaceful places which have long enjoyed domestic democracy, establishing a global democracy – the ultimate goal of any real democrat – is not on the public agenda.
Exxon, Coca-Cola, BHP Billiton and News Corporation have much more say in organising the global agenda than the planet’s five billion mature-age voters without a ballot box.
Plutocracy, rule by the wealthy, is democracy’s most insidious rival. It is served by plutolatry, the worship of wealth, which has become the world’s prevailing religion. But on a finite planet, the rule of the rich must inevitably rely on guns rather than the ballot box, though, I hasten to add, wealth does not deny a good heart. All of us here are amongst the world’s wealthiest people, but I think none of us worship wealth to the exclusion of democracy.
We instinctively know that democracy is the only vehicle for creating a fair, global society in which freedom will abound, but the extremes of gluttony and poverty will not. Mahatma Ghandi observed, the world has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.
So what’s it to be: democracy or guns? I pluck for democracy.
The concept of world democracy goes back centuries, but since 2007, there has been a new movement towards an elected, representative assembly at the United Nations, in parallel with the unelected, appointed, General Assembly. This elected assembly would have none of the General Assembly’s powers but would be an important step along the way to a future, popularly elected and agreeably empowered global assembly.
Two Greens motions in the Australian Senate to support this campaign for a global people’s assembly have been voted down. However similar motions won support in the European Parliament, and in India 40 MPs, including a number of ministers, have backed the proposal. I will move for the world’s 100 Greens parties to back it too, at the third Global Greens conference in Senegal next week. It fits perfectly with the Global Greens Charter, adopted in Canberra in 2001.
We Earthians can develop rosier prospects. We have been to the Moon. We have landed eyes and ears on Mars. We are discovering planets hundreds of light years close which are ripe for life. We are on a journey to endless wonder in the Cosmos and to realising our own remarkable potential.
To give this vision security, we must get our own planet in order.
The political debate of the Twentieth century was polarised between capitalism and communism. It was about control of the economy in the narrow sense of material goods and money. A free market versus state control.
Bitter experience tells us that the best outcome is neither, but some of both. The role of democracy in the nation state has been to calibrate that balance.
In this Twenty First Century the political debate is moving to a new arena. It is about whether we expend Earth’s natural capital as our population grows to ten billion people in the decades ahead with average consumption also growing.
We have to manage the terrifying facts that Earth’s citizenry is already using one hundred and twenty percent of the planet’s productivity capacity – its renewable living resources; that the last decade was the hottest in the last 1300 years (if not the last 9000 years); that we are extincting our fellow species faster than ever before in human history; and that to accommodate ten billion people at American, European or Australasian rates of consumption we will need two more planets to exploit within a few decades.
It may be that the Earth’s biosphere cannot tolerate ten billion of us big consuming mammals later this century. Or it may be that, given adroit and agreeable global management, it can. It’s up to us.
Once more the answer lies between the poles: between the narrow interests of the mega-rich and a surrender to the nihilist idea that the planet would be better off without us.
It will be global democracy’s challenge to find the equator between those poles, and it is that equator which the Greens are best placed to reach.
One great difference between the old politics and Green politics, is the overarching question which predicates all our political decisions: ‘will people one hundred years from now thank us?’
In thinking one hundred years ahead, we set our community’s course for one hundred thousand years: that humanity will not perish at its own hand but will look back upon its Twenty First Century ancestry with gratitude.
And when the future smiles, we can smile too.
That query ‘will people a hundred years from now thank us?’ should be inscribed across the door of Earth’s parliament.
So let us resolve
that there should be established
for the prevalence and happiness of humankind
a representative assembly
a global parliament
for the people of the Earth
based on the principle of
one person one vote one value;
and to enable this outcome
that it should be a bicameral parliament
with its house of review
having equal representation
elected from every nation.
An Earth parliament for all. But what would be its commission? Here are four goals:
Economy.
Equality.
Ecology.
Eternity.
To begin with economy, because that word means managing our household. The parliament would employ prudent resource management to put an end to waste and to better share Earth’s plenitude. For example, it might cut the trillion dollars annual spending on armaments. A cut of just ten percent, would free up the money to guarantee every child on the planet clean water and enough food, as well as a school to attend to develop her or his best potential. World opinion would back such a move, though, I suppose Boeing, NATO, the People’s Liberation Army, and the Saudi Arabian royal family might not.
The second goal is equality. This begins with equality of opportunity – as in every child being assured that school, where lessons are in her or his own first language, and a health clinic to attend. Equality would ensure, through the fair regulation of free enterprise, each citizen’s wellbeing, including the right to work, to innovate, to enjoy creativity and to understand and experience and contribute to defending the beauty of Earth’s biosphere.
Which brings me to the third goal: ecology. Ecological wellbeing must understrap all outcomes, so as to actively protect the planet’s biodiversity and living ecosystems. ‘In wildness’, wrote Thoreau ‘is the preservation of the world.’ Wild nature is our cradle and the most vital source for our spiritual and physical wellbeing yet it is the world’s most rapidly disappearing resource. And so I pay tribute to Miranda Gibson, 60 metres high on her tall tree platform tonight as the rain and snow falls across central Tasmania. In Miranda’s spirit is the saving of the world.
And lastly, eternity. Eternity is for as long as we could be. It means beyond our own experience. It also means ‘forever’, if there is no inevitable end to life. Let’s take the idea of eternity and make it our own business.
I have never met a person in whom I did not see myself reflected. Some grew old and died, and I am now part of their ongoing presence on Earth.
Others have a youthful vitality which I have lost and will soon give up altogether. These youngsters will in turn keep my candle, and yours, if you are aged like me, alight in the Cosmos. In this stream of life, where birth and death are our common lot, the replenishment of humankind lights up our own existences. May it go on and on and on…
The pursuit of eternity is no longer the prerogative of the gods: it is the business of us all, here and now.
Drawing on the best of our character, Earth’s community of people is on the threshold of a brilliant new career in togetherness. But we, all together, have to open the door to that future using the powerful key of global democracy.
I think we are intelligent enough to get there. My faith is in the collective nous and caring of humanity, and in our innate optimism. Even in its grimmest history, the optimism of humanity has been its greatest power. We must defy pessimism, as well as the idea that there is any one of us who cannot turn a successful hand to improving Earth’s future prospects.
I am an optimist. I’m also an opsimath: I learn as I get older. And, I have never been happier in my life. Hurtling to death, I am alive and loving being Green.
I look forward in my remaining years to helping spread a contagion of confidence that, together, we people of Earth will secure a great future. We can and will retrieve Earth’s biosphere. We will steady ourselves – this unfolding flower of intelligence in the Universe – for the long, shared, wondrous journey into the enticing centuries ahead.
Let us determine to bring ourselves together, settle our differences, and shape and realise our common dream for this joyride into the future. In that pursuit, let us create a global democracy and parliament under the grand idea of one planet, one person, one vote, one value.
We must, we can, we will.
Er ….
Over to you, fellow “Earthian”.
Barnaby Is Right 
Barnably
Its what is going on in Israel that the future of the world is unfolding.
As Christians we have known for a while that the world’s economy is imploding as it was predicted.
When it implodes along will come a dictator who will look as if he has all the answers and then we will really know about how hard life will be
Carole, I totally agree. The world is going down a slippery slope and Bob Brown has already hit the bottom with this tirade. Get rid of him, he is nothing but a green frog.
Is Eathians the leftist version of “earthlings”?
OMG!!
Is this guy really in our Federal Senate??? And how much do we pay him??? OMG!!
Earthians?? WTF is an “Earthian?”.
I’ve always suspected that adults were just grown up children, with more problems, hangups & weird agendas..
Now I’m convinced.. And Gillard is running our country being pushed around by this raving nutter??? She’s bad enough without the insane input from Brown.
OMG!
One World Government? Hasn’t a version of Centralised Planning been tried before??
And didn’t it cost a few hundred million lives in Russia and China??? (and generally piss the inhabitants off a bit??)
But that’s OK. This time, under good old Bob, it’ll be different. Green. Comfy. Nice.
We really need an election. NOW! FAST!
Or a revolution.
An election would be less messy…
Senator Brown doesn’t mention one world government anywhere in that speech. You should read it again. If you still don’t understand it, I’m sure the Senator would be happy to explain it to you if you ask nicely. senator.bob.brown@aph.gov.au
Johnno, “an Earth parliament for all”, can’t believe you missed it. What on earth do you think an elected parliament is? Not only this, but he further speaks about the most frightening aspect of all, that is an Un-elected, appointed parliament above the elected one!
Mate, a World government needs a world parliament, just as the Roman Catholic religious leaders called for in October 2011, together with its Global Bank.
He probably reckons that one of the millions of civilisation he dreamt of while watching the stars with his boyfriend, tried that and failed too! This is one confused puppy.
This is fantastic stuff, its difficult to describe how it feels to be so blown away by the insanity of those this country picked to represent them.
If we could only have five full years of these crazies ‘leading us’, then perhaps they too will become as extinct as the intergalactic ‘people like animals’ he dreams of.
Jesus
As you know, I have been very critical of many of Bob Brown’s foreign policy statements in recent years. His tendency to support “regime change” in countries such as Libya and Syria – countries of which he clearly has very little understanding – actually caused me to quit the Greens in disgust last year.
However, I can’t really find anything objectionable at all in the speech you quote above. It’s not a speech I’d make myself. I’d frame the argument differently and use a somewhat different approach. But I am broadly sympathetic to the case case Bob Brown makes for global DEMOCRACY.
You clearly do disagree with his speech – and seem to assume we’ll all share your aversion. I could guess what your criticisms are and try to respond to them, but I’d rather reply to specific arguments than innuendo.
So what is it you find objectionable? Why not tell us? You say “No commentary required.” I beg to differ. I think commentary is very much required if you seek intelligent discussion about this topic.
As you already know Syd, I firmly believe that the notion of a global “government”, “parliament”, “democracy”, or whatever label one prefers, is a fundamentally dangerous idea. Further, I believe that to support same implies a disturbing naivety on the part of the person who supports it. Total centralisation of power is, in my view, always an enormously dangerous idea, even within a single country, much less the entire planet, and I believe that the evidence of history supports my position. Total centralisation of power is now and has been in the past the ultimate goal of notorious and often genocidal world-rule aspirants since recorded history began.
I suggest that it is well worth noting and pondering on Brown’s specific proscription viz the UN, which I have bold underlined to draw attention to it. His aspirational “elected” “global parliament” of “one person, one vote”, would have no real power; the real power would remain with the unelected UN General Assembly. Yes, he blithers on creating the impression that this “bicameral” system would/should be a transitional step; I see this as dangerous BS, a deceitful pretence of an “elected” World Parliament (with no real power) as a salve to placate the masses that there is a Global “Democracy”, which is in reality nothing more than a curtain behind which the real power could hide and continue its (already oft-demonstrated) nefarious activities.
I have not commented on Brown’s speech because I think his words plainly speak for themselves. Especially for any thinking individual who has the faintest grasp of (even recent, viz 100 years) world history.
A good understanding of history is profoundly important to understanding the present and building a better future. But the past can only be a partial guide at this time on our history – because we face truly unprecedented challenges.
Humanity’s collective ecological impact is unprecedented. So are human population levels. So is our ability to destroy each other and the planet.
The idea that we can measure up to these challenges within the political framework of past or current times is, IMO, a dangerous delusion. Like it or not, I think we have to develop some form of collective management on a global scale. The question is not whether we shift towards some form of global governance. That’s happening inexorably. The question is whether this global governance will be in the interests of all – or in the interests of a few.
I prefer the former option – and I think Bob Brown does too. His speech doesn’t purport to be a complete blueprint for the future. It does, I think, point in broadly the right direction. We should develop a form of governance that’s for the benefit of all. We should try to retain and strengthen democracy – not abandon it.
Of course there are dangers inherent in this. Life for billions of people with extraordinarily powerful technology on a fragile planet is inherently dangerous.
There is an alternative to trying to create democratic global governance. We can try to avoid it. Broadly speaking, that’s what most folk are doing at present.
The likelihood, in my opinion, is that this will lead to unprecedented disaster/s and/or the eventual imposition of global governance that’s not in the least democratic or fair to all.
“Humanity’s collective ecological impact is unprecedented”
Are you an ecologist Syd? What makes you think the planet is fragile? For all you know the power of the Earth could be immense, far greater than you can possibly imagine.
Syd, there are many claims in what you have said here thinking to support your position, that I could take up in response. But there is no need.
The heart of the matter is this.
You make the case against Global “Democracy” for me. By your own words, you have “quit the Greens in disgust” over their foreign policy – “regime change” (ie, war, violent and bloody “revolution”; the anti-thesis of so-called “peaceful democracy”) in particular.
FACT: You no longer trust the Greens. PROOF: Your own words, and actions.
Why should any rational person trust politicians in a Global “Democracy”?
To do so would be overwhelmingly naïve and foolish.
Bob Brown’s words appealing to people’s desire for peaceful sustainability, equality, et al, are aptly characterised by borrowing from Shakespeare – “great swelling words signifying nothing”.
He is a hypocrite of the worst kind.
To paraphrase a Biblical wisdom, “By their actions (and inactions) you shall know them”.
To see the hypocrisy in mad Bob’s tirade about “Democracy” you need look no further than how the Greens have contrived to use their balance of power in the Senate to rape Australia’s Democracy.
It’s no coincidence they rose to power exploiting Tasmania’s similar mad “Hare-Clark” voting system.
It’s also no coincidence that nearly all manufacturing has now closed down in what was once a thriving state. Tasmania now has the country’s highest rate of unemployment.
That’s mad Bob’s vision.
The fact that no one from space has contacted Bob Brown just proves there’s intelligent life out there.
Labour is cheaper overseas. this has nothing to do with the Greens. Mad John’s Work Choices may have saved the manufacturing sector.
Let this be “Exhibit A” in the prosecution’s charge that “Bob Brown is nuts”. Your honour, i rest my case.
Hey, don’t give Bob al the credit. I’m sure his speech writer is Rob Oakeshott.
The first action of any dictator given global authority by Bob Brown would be to have him lined up and shot in gratitude. Then again, they get rid of their rivals first. I hardly think Bob Brown would represent a threat. A queer Tasmanian watermelon is pretty low on the tyrant’s evolutionary scale.
Bob Brown falls neatly into the “USEFUL IDIOT” category. Sort of like Woodrow Wilson signing the Federal Reserve Act into existence in 1913.
Has anyone told Bob that we already have a defacto World Parliament, pushing climate change and regime change down our throats. It’s called the UN.
They’re unelected, rather appointed. They push crazy notions like World Carbon Taxation. We now have one.
They do other things too like Irak, Libya, and Afghanistan. They seem to desperately want to do Syria and Iran next. All under UN sanction.
And the Useful Idiots of the world want to give them more power over us???
Well said, TS. You’ve nailed it.
Could not have said it better, well done.
What is sad, is that the majority of Australians were happy with the mushroom treatment; as long as we are given ‘Bread and Circuses’ we will continue to have USEFUL IDIOTS like that leading us.
This will come again, but far, far worse.
Bob Brown’s earthian idols in the EU just robbed Greek public hospitals, universities and utilities http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/exclusive-greek-government-robbed-public-institutions-to-complete-bond-swap/#comments
And us Aussies are only worried about losing our super!!
Thanks for this Twodogs.
We must leverage the Internet while we still can. Far too much freedom for tyrants to leave unchallenged I’m afraid.
Spot on.
“So far, it seems like we are the lone thinkers in this vast, expanding Universe.”
I was reminded of the Galaxy Song from Monty Python
To Kevin Moore:
Thanks for reminding us of the Monty Python “Galaxy Song”.
I only got as far as the wonderfully relevant line in “Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail”:
“Trust me, I’m a Doctor you know”.
Given Bob Brown’s famous dyspeptic attitude towards most people, one suspects that, when the aliens inserted the brain-probe, they didn’t go in via the ear.
Bob Brown should be deported to China or Nth Korea.
We would see what he thinks of totalitarianism in the raw,because as it is he knows however hard he pontificates here, it is still a form of democracy and he is safe to spout his fantasies.
His utterings show me how bad is the noxious cancer that has eaten up Canberra and most of the MSM.
Thank God Qlders showed us on Sat that the old Aussie independent nature and ability to spot fakes and flakes still exists, as I had begun to doubt
. Now i’m shining b up my brickbat daily till the federal election rolls around, to “do a Qld” on Brown and Gillard et al, all the incompetent communists in government, and Brown isn’t alone!
Um, Bob, look at the EU. We have seen what a ‘mini world’ democracy is like. Big nations bully small nations (think Greece). Constant interference in national affairs by people with no undertanding of the people or their culture.
No – I don’t think I want to be part of a global democracy; I’d rather see democracy in all nations.
Democracies have freedom of speech and press (I don’t think you really want a democracy do you Bob).
I’d like to start with Australia becoming a genuine democracy instead of a representative one.
I guess though you could tell Gillard to hold a referendum on whether we want global government or not.
If a global government behaved as badly as the EU, freedom would revert to being a curious concept once again. The EU override any member decision that doesn’t suit them, and they routinely break their own rules when it doesn’t suit them.
A member threatens to leave the EU? Remove their leader. A would-be member doesn’t meet requirements? Let them in anyway. Need to tighten grip on power or risk losing it? Break your own rules and summarily introduce Fiscal Union. Member doesn’t join FU? Join them anyway. Member can’t afford anything? Enforce austerity but not on purchasing submarines that are not needed. Member has referendum to withdraw from EU? Invalidate referendum by decree.
If that’s how a civilised corner of the world behaves with increased power, imagine how a global power run by medieval tyrants will behave. Your vote won’t be worth the paper it’s written on!!!
Hey Two Dogs,
Talking about votes, Stalin had a great saying,
“It’s not WHO votes that counts, it’s who COUNTS the votes, that matters”.
Just ask Ron Paul…
WE URGENTLY NEED AN ELECTION NOW!!
.
Global parliament doesn’t mean global government.
If those vegetarian Greenies had their way, Surf ‘n’ Turf would mean water and grass.
Seaweed is edible. (I’m not a vegetarian)
OMG drug test politicians!
Wow. Bob Brown is slightly mad. I think that the best way to get rid of him is to just cause Tasmania to seceede as they produce nothing for the rest of australia.
Furthermore, what do the greens stand for? Maybe Syd could tell me. How can you defend homosexual rights and ask for gay marriage? (my personal view is that if people of the same sex wish to live together then tax laws should be the same however marriage is something that is done before God, and as God clearly states in the Bible homosexuality is the sin) and then stand for the rights of Islam. A religion which around the world is openly killing homosexuals. The same goes with how can you argue that it is ok to kill a baby whilst in it’s mothers womb yet argue that we need to save the wales. How can you say that you wish to make peoples lives better, then put a carbon tax on them at a time when many people are struggling. A party that does not know what it stands for will eventually fall because they have no firm base. I just hope that it is soon.
Clearly the hypocritical is confused Marlon, the left don’t think, they feeeeel.
They use emotion to make decisions, thats why effeminate males and women are generally unwise choices for leaders of countries.
Sorry, I know thats not PC, but the book you read makes clear that there is one order that works, whilst the others don’t!
Don’t say Tasmania doesn’t produce anything. We used to produce a heck of a lot more, however, before Bob Brown and the Greens shut down most of Tasmania’s industries (and they haven’t finished yet).
Remember also that 66% of Tasmanians (and its Government) wanted to continue being more productive with the aid of hydro electricity from the Franklin Dam.
It was the inner-suburban mainland that stopped Tasmania – even to the extent of Gareth Gareth (Biggles) Evans flying RAAF spy planes over the state.
So don’t blame Tasmania entirely for Bob Brown – you were warned.
Nevertheless, the best way to get rid of Bob Brown would be to incorporate Tasmania into Victoria – including Tasmania’s separate Senate places.
It’s ridiculous that a population less than many mainland cities carries the cost of statehood. Such a move would also take away the Greens’ dominance of Tasmania through its stupid Hare Clark voting system.
Economy. Equality. Ecology. Eternity. Sounds good to me.
Big on bumperbar stickers and mindless boilerplate, are you?
No.