The Rudd government should support the bill to increase the single pension, which was passed by the Senate last night, or introduce its own bill to increase pensions across the board, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"The Rudd government was able to bring in $31 billion in tax cuts without a review, or a public inquiry but will not act to increase pensions by $30 a week," Senator Brown said.

"There is no excuse for the government's inaction. It needs to stop arguing over process and take action for pensioners."

"Our uranium going to dangerous dictatorships" – Brown
Greens Leader Bob Brown told the Australian Uranium Conference in Fremantle this morning that both John Howard and Kevin Rudd are acting with dangerous disregard for the future security of Australians by selling uranium to nuclear weapons equipped countries like Russia, China and India.
"Australian uranium will inevitably either go into nuclear weapons or free up local uranium for weapons in Russia, China or India," Senator Brown said.

Greens Senator Bob Brown will use his address at the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War XIIIth WORLD CONGRESS to call on the Australian Government to immediately suspend the laser uranium enrichment research going on at Lucas Heights in Sydney"s south.

Yesterday Senator Brown met with Mycle Schneider a visiting French nuclear expert who has uncovered that research under way at Lucas Heights into cutting edge laser uranium enrichment techniques has the potential to be used to develop nuclear weapons.