The 25th anniversary of the High Court decision which saved the Franklin River is proving a big drawcard. Almost all 1000 tickets to the gala event in the Federation Ballroom of Hobart's Grand Chancellor Hotel have sold.

ENVIRONMENT MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE FOR AUSTRALIA By Michele Levine, CEO Roy Morgan Research Future Summit 2008, May 12-13, Sydney The environment (including climate change/global warming, water resources, drought, famine) is the most important problem facing the World and Australia. China is the most important region to Australia for economic purposes; Indonesia is most important for security purposes; and Japan is the country Australia can most effectively work with on both.

 Cutting public service jobs might make for good politics for the big parties but it makes for worse public policy for Australia, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today in Canberra, campaigning with ACT Greens lead senate candidate Kerrie Tucker.
 
"The term 'razor gang' implies a violent slashing of public servants' jobs. Kevin Rudd chose the term, he obviously meant it. John Howard showed how it's done," Senator Brown said.
 

Greens Leader Bob Brown has written to Gunns' CEO John Gay, to meet Gunns' claim that the Greens will not discuss the impact on forests and pollution of Bass Strait threatened by the proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley (see advertisements in Tasmanian newspapers today).
 
"The Greens certainly will discuss Gunns' 'inconvenient facts'. I have asked John Gay to have the gumption to debate the issue publicly before the federal election on November the 24th," Senator Brown said.
 

The drought and climate change will hit food prices and bring greater hardship to Australia's pensioners and low income earners – Mr Howard's forgotten battlers, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
 
"Neither Howard nor Rudd mentioned the Murray-Darling Basin's plight in the Leaders' Debate but as October shapes up as the hottest and driest October on record, the impact will be national," Senator Brown said.
 

The Prime Minister, John Howard, is asking for divine intervention to end Australia's drought which he, more any other person alive, is responsible, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
 
"As the nation faces rising food prices, Mr Howard's plea for Australian's to 'hope and pray' is as much about his election prospects as it is about rain," Senator Brown said.
 

Malcolm Turnbull's advocacy of dams for the Clarence and Tweed Rivers, before a thorough environmental analysis, hopelessly compromises his portfolio, Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Hobart today. 
 
"The job of environment minister, a priori, is to defend the nation's environment but here the minister is sacrificing it to pre-election big-dam water politics.  Like Liberal leader Barnett's plan for canals to bring water from the Kimberley to Perth, which lost him the last election in Western Australia, Turnbull's plan will very likely backfire with Coalition voters.

Greens Leader Bob Brown says he is looking forward to meeting Labor's new environment spokesperson, Peter Garrett.
 
"As companions in the battle to stop environmental vandalism in Australia over the last 3 decades, it is important we co-ordinate our powerful positions to rapidly move Australia to a world role model and leader in environmental policy and technology," Senator Brown said.
 

**REVISED**
The 2006 State of the Environment report is more sceptical about climate change than John Howard.
 
It headlines the topic as 'Australia's variable climate' and excuses the Howard government for a decade of inaction:
 
"It is increasingly clear that the last 50 years of experience with rainfall patterns is not a sufficient time span to plan and design an adequate response to climate variability and change" (p20).
 

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has no option but to block the Traveston dam on QLD's Mary River, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
 
"This dam would devastate a raft of nationally listed rare and endangered species. That includes the Queensland lungfish, which is internationally renowned for linking the emergence of species with backbones from the ocean onto land millions of years ago. The dam will destroy the lungfish's prime breeding grounds."