Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown made the following remarks during the Environmental and Social Taxes session of the Tax Forum, on 4 October 2011:

Today's Opera House protest for Australia's wild forests shows a courage missing in boardrooms and parliament, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"It sends a message to the world that will be popular. More than 80% of Australians want the destruction of native forests and their wildlife stopped," Senator Brown said.

"The Australian Forest Products Association's claim that Australia's wild forest are logged sustainably is ecological nonsense."

After a zero-coverage press conference by Ta Ann critic, British journalist Clare Rewcastle, in Hobart this week, today's Mercury has a lead letter from Ta Ann attacking Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown.

A public forum for Ms Rewcastle at Salamanca Inn last night was filmed throughout by two Ta Ann employees.

"My images of an indigenous man sidelined by a log truck in Sarawak and of an Orangutan are every bit as illustrative of this giant logging company's impacts as generic images used every day in Tasmania's forest debate," Senator Brown said.

Dozens of high conservation value Tasmanian forest areas, inside the 430,000 hectares agreed to be protected, are being logged for Malaysian logging corporation Ta Ann, Greens Leader Bob Brown alleged in Hobart today.

"Today, by agreement of Premier Giddings and Prime Minister Gillard, $11.5 million is being handed to Ta Ann's accomplice, Forestry Tasmania, for no better reason than Forestry Tasmania threatened even more destruction if they did not," Senator Brown said.

Strong recommendations to arrest dramatic declines in koala numbers across Australia are at the heart of a Senate inquiry report tabled in parliament today, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said.

"I referred the problems facing koalas to a Senate inquiry because experts told me we were fast approaching a crisis point," Senator Brown said in Canberra.

Tasmania's lead Liberal Senator Eric Abetz told the Senate today that "we don't want this money spent in Tasmania", rebuffing the Intergovernmental Agreement delivering $276 million of federal money to Tasmania.

The Coalition was debating its own move to delay a vote on Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown's motion:

That the Senate condemns the Coalition for seeking to deny Tasmania $270 million of assistance for forestry transition.

Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown says that while he is not privy to the legal or probity issues compelling the Tasmanian Government to hand $11.5 million in federal money to Forestry Tasmania, an administrator should be brought in.

"The very fact that state Labor and Liberals legislated away ministerial responsibility for Forestry Tasmania is now coming back to bite them and the public purse," Senator Brown said.

Greens Leader Bob Brown will today introduce the Telecommunications Amendment (Mobile Phone Towers) Bill 2011 into the Senate to provide a better balance between the power of telcos to put mobile phone antennae where they want and the views of communities affected.

"Mobile carriers can erect phone antennae on your land or close to where you live and there's not a lot you can do about it. We think there is room in the legislation to provide more information to communities and give them greater opportunities to object," Senator Brown said.

Communities need to have a say in where mobile phone towers are located, and not depend on the whim of telecommunications companies, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"While Telstra's decision to withdraw its development application for a mobile phone tower at Tinderbox is welcome, people should have more influence in where mobile phone towers are located," Senator Brown said in Hobart.