The Committee of Privileges has agreed to the request of Australian Greens Senators Bob Brown and Christine Milne and today released their lawyers' submissions on the referral about allegations originating from Liberal Senators Eric Abetz, George Brandis and Helen Kroger alleging corruption.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown, alongside Greens Senator Larissa Waters and Queensland Greens candidate for Mt Coot-tha Adam Stone, spoke to reporters in Brisbane today about food and water security, coal seam gas, health, and climate change. Other topics included the Labor leadership saga.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown, part way through the Senate inquiry into the minerals resource rent tax, spoke to reporters in Canberra today, calling for the mining tax to be extended to gold and uranium.

The anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake, the Greens' move for a Senate inquiry into the draft Murray Darling Basin plan, equal marriage, nuclear submarines, and the Labor leadership saga were also discussed.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown, speaking to reporters in Hobart, urges the federal government not to delay on heeding the Gonski Review's call for billions of dollars to be injected into the school system.

Senator Brown commented on Premier Giddings' vilification of environmentalists and also described how, amid all the turbulence in federal politics, the Greens are getting on with the job, be it education or protecting the great wild forests of Tasmania.

Coalition frontbencher Senator George Brandis has bowed to Greens' demands (since December) and has stood down from a signal case before the Senate's powerful Privileges Committee.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown spoke to press gallery journalists this evening about Senator Brandis' secret "recusal" from the Senate's powerful privileges committee, only recently revealed in a letter to Senator Brown's and Deputy Leader Christine Milne's legal counsel.

Environment Minister Tony Burke has issued a statement rewriting Julia Gillard's 7 August 2011 promise to "immediately" protect Tasmania's iconic forests. Burke enlisted the backing of three other ministers.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has called on Liberal powerbroker George Brandis to remove himself, or be removed, from the Senate Privileges Committee because he has pre-judged the question of the integrity of Greens Senators Brown and Milne.

"I have reminded the Senate that the Committee of Privileges has the power to recommend jail sentences of six months for Senators. It is parallel to our courts, must apply standards of justice like those of the courts and its decisions are appellable to the courts. Senator Brandis must go," Senator Brown said in Canberra today.

Our Greens team assembled for the first party room meeting of the 2012 parliamentary year.