ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contacts
Former Greens leader Bob Brown has said the decision to purchase two thousand kilograms of urea, two 44-gallon drums of diesel and a spool of detonating cord (from the dark web) has “absolutely nothing” and is “totally unrelated” to the recent Federal Government decision to green light the expansion of salmon farms in Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour.
“I, uh, I’m getting into my horticulture,” offered Brown as he spoke to The Advocate this morning via wired telephone.
Brown attended The Advocate’s Tasmanian bureau office, the back bar of the Shipwrights Arms in Battery Point, where he used the suburb’s corded telephone to speak to the newsroom here in the Queensland Channel Country.
“And um I’ve also picked up a used John Deere Gator that runs on diesel. I’m getting far too old to be carrying bags of fertiliser, and, uh, seed or whatever around the garden. It’s hard travail, or ‘hard yakka’ as you mainlanders like to call it. But I enjoy gardening. Need I remind you that I was once head of The Greens. Back when they were more about chaining themselves to bulldozers rather than attending meetings and rallies with the domestic terrorists of the Queensland CFMEU!”
Our reporter reminded Brown that he did not need to remind them that he was once the thinking woman’s Jacqui Lambie.
“Very well then. And yes, I would like to comment on this gutless Federal Government and their meek curtailing of Big Salmon. The environment always suffers when it gets between big business and stacks of cash! We only have salmon farms in Tasmania because of capitalism and consumerism. Do we need to offer fresh salmon in supermarket in Darwin? No, but we do. Do we need to offer barramundi to the bucktooth Melbourne yuppies sitting in the Shippie’s bistro right now? No, but it’s on the board. Where the hell is Humpty Doo?”
“I’m sorry it’s come to this but I’m going to have to do something about it. Richard [Flanagan] has given me the lend of his 1985 Nissan Vanette. I asked him if he wanted to know what I wanted to do with it. He declined.”
More to come.
