Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has welcomed the government's green paper incorporating the Greens' proposal for 16 and 17 year-old Australians to be offered non-compulsory voting.

"We have been advocating this move for a decade. It means that young Australians, if they choose to enrol, would be able to vote. It does not alter current law making voting compulsory for everyone aged 18 or over."

Chechnya's brutal President Ramzan Kadyrov will fail the Australian character test in section 501 of the Migration Act if he tries to get a visa for the Melbourne Cup Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"Mr Kadyrov, who presides over torture and international assassination, will fail on a number of grounds including:

a person will fail a character test where:

The government and opposition have voted in the Senate to block a Green's move to reinstate Hobart's Federal Court Registrar.

"The Greens amendment would have required the government to ensure Hobart kept a full-time Registrar, through a direction to the Governor-General," Australian Greens Leader Senator Brown said.

"By removing their support for the Greens amendment, which Senator Abetz had originally indicated was solid, the opposition has been dudded into a position of hoping the government will change its mind later this year," Senator Brown said.

The Australian Senate has passed Australian Greens' Leader Bob Brown's motion that:

The Senate

Notes efforts by US President Barack Obama and his administration to ensure all US citizens have access to affordable health care.

Commends this course as one Australia has long since undertaken with success and sends assurance to our trans-Pacific neighbours that since this nation adopted universal health care in 1984:

• Revelation that Australia is the worst polluter in the world

Risk assessment company Maplecroft's CO2 Energy Emissions Index has revealed that Australia has overtaken the United States as the worst per capita emitter of carbon pollution in the world.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said: "Australia has overtaken the US on Kevin Rudd's watch."

"David Spratt has warned that just two infrastructure projects announced in 2008 will alone result in destination emissions equal to 117 percent of our domestic emissions."

The Senate this morning rejected the following motion from Australian Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown:

That the Senate

1. Supports protection of farming and conservation areas from coal exploration and mining and its effects in the Galilee Basin in Queensland.

2. Does not support the massive increase in coal exports flowing from the Galilee Basin out through Abbot Point and Hay Point because of the climate change ramifications of burning more coal.

Both the government and opposition have voted down Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown's motion that:

The Senate - Calls on the government to ensure alleged war criminal Gui Campos remains in Australia until investigations into the allegations about his actions in occupied East Timor are completely finalised.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has said that the investigation into crimes relating to the deaths of the Balibo Five won't be effective unless it involves the questioning of Captain Yunus Yosfia.

"After years of calls for action from relatives, the Greens and the Australian public, I am pleased that an investigation has finally begun," said Senator Brown.

"However, for any investigation to be effective it must involve Captain Yunus Yosfia. The NSW Deputy Coroner named Captain Yosfia and made recommendations which suggest war crimes may have been committed."

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has called on the government to establish an independent arbiter to oversee the printing and other entitlements provided to MPs.

"The establishment of an independent arbiter is long overdue. Clear guidelines are needed so that MPs and the public are protected."

"There are many instances where the rules governing the entitlements of federal parliamentarians are not clear or specific, and the best advice is that it is ‘up to the discretion' of the politician."