Prime Minister Julia Gillard has confirmed her commitment to the Greens to establish a Leaders Debates Commission to regulate debates between party leaders in future election campaigns.

“The Commission will be another reward for voters out of the 2010 election result,” Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Canberra today.

“Hopefully, the Commission will end the past malpractice of Prime Ministers either squibbing or manipulating televised debates in their favour, and the exclusion of third or fourth parties from the debates.”

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown visited the Tasmanian Aboriginal encampment by the Jordan River in southern Tasmania this afternoon. The Aboriginal community is protesting against an expressway bridge being built over a 40,000-year-old Aboriginal site.

"This is a national disgrace. There are easy options for this bridge, but there is no option for this internationally important Aboriginal
site," Senator Brown said.

"The Federal Government's inaction and the feeble nature of legislation which has failed to protect the site should be urgently reviewed."

Senator Bob Brown responds to Prime Minister Gillard's attack on the Greens, and addresses queries about the NSW state election.

The centre point of Prime Minister Gillard’s tirade against the Greens, who enabled her to form government, is falsely branding 1.5 million Australian voters as not being driven by their love of family, doing the right thing, or their delight in Australian values.

“Julia has made a second, gratuitous attack on the supporters of her minority government with a demonstrably wrong line of argument that shows divisive rather than uniting leadership,” Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

A week after being ruled out of order for insulting the (Greens) Speaker of the ACT Legislative Assembly, Shane Rattenbury, Liberal Senator George Brandis has withdrawn the remark and apologised in the Senate this morning.

"It was bad behaviour, in particular because it denigrated the presiding officer of another parliament, not a fellow Senator who has the ability to seek a remedy in the chamber," Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"Out of bad behaviour has come a good precedent in terms of Senate procedure," Senator Brown said.

The Australian Greens are pleased that the inquiry into territory powers, blocked three years ago, will proceed and hope that the bill to enhance democracy for the territories will be law within months, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"Support for the bill is an outcome of the new politics in Australia where people have voted for greater diversity. There is a growing acceptance that representation in the territories should be improved," Senator Brown said in Canberra today.

Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Canberra today it was remarkable that the Coalition thought the Government - even in minority - had an entire right to gatekeep bills passed by a majority in both houses.

As the constitutional debate over the ability of the Senate to give rise to bills continues, the Manager of Opposition Business in the House, Christopher Pyne, conceded that " it would be entirely a matter for the Government to accept, amend or reject" the student allowance bill even if the House passes it.

The Australian Greens will raise pressure for the original resource super profits tax to be reinstated, as new figures show the deal stitched up by the Government last year gave away $60 billion in revenue, Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Hobart today.

"The big mining companies will effectively take $60 billion out of Australian taxpayers' pockets as they gouge profits out of Australian soil and ship it offshore," Senator Brown said

The Greens opposed the second reading of the Social Security Amendment (Income Support for Regional Students) Bill 2010 and I want to explain our position as far as not just this legislation is concerned but also the new configuration that we have in this parliament with a minority government and a balance of power shared by, at the moment, a number of entities in the Senate.

The Senate day has begun with two hours and 20 minutes of debate on private senators' bills - a breakthrough after a century of the Senate being almost exclusively run to facilitate governments' agendas, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

Bills debated today were from Senator Nash on student income support and Senator Ronaldson on Defence Force retirement benefits.