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Broadcast: 31/10/2003
Brandis defends Greens-Nazis comments
This week Parliament heard one of its strangest speeches ever, the Green-Nazi speech. The author, Liberal Senator George Brandis, was attempting to condemn Greens leader Bob Brown for interjections he made during President Bush's recent address. Evidently inspired by newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt, Senator Brandis quoted from scholarly texts tracing the origins of Green politics right back to the German "Volkish" movement in the mid-19th century. It was a mystical, naturist movement that fused with the age-old hatred of Jews and just 80 years later gave birth to a vegetarian dictator called Adolf Hitler. Senator Brandis warned that just as Hitler came to power by manipulating free elections, so too "the sinister and fanatical views represented by Green politicians can grow and gain strength under the cover of democracy".
Compere: Tony Jones Reporter: Tony Jones
TONY JONES: Well, as we said earlier we couldn't let this week pass by without close scrutiny of one of the strangest parliamentary contributions in memory, the Green-Nazi speech.
The author, Liberal Senator George Brandis was attempting to condemn Greens leader Bob Brown for interjections he made during President Bush's recent address.
Evidently inspired by newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt, Senator Brandis quoted from scholarly texts tracing the origins of Green politics right back to the German "Volkish movement" in the mid-19th century.
To summarise: that was a mystical, naturist movement that fused with the age-old hatred of Jews and just 80 years later gave birth to a vegetarian dictator called Adolf Hitler.
Senator Brandis warned that just as Hitler came to power by manipulating free elections, so too "the sinister and fanatical views represented by Green politicians can grow and gain strength under the cover of democracy".
Well, Senator Brandis is not hiding away from all this he joins us now in Brisbane.
And here in Sydney to defend himself is the Greens leader Senator Bob Brown.
TONY JONES: George Brandis, you've drawn particular disdain from the Jewish community for this Greens-Nazi comparison.
After a few days of reflection, was this a terrible mistake?
GEORGE BRANDIS, LIBERAL SENATOR: No not at all.
In relation to the reaction of Jeremy Jones from the Australian Council of Jewry.
Can I tell you when Mr Jones made that remark, apparently coming to the defence of the Greens, I was contacted by a very large number of leaders of the Jewish community who told me that they fully supported what I had said, in particular the leader of the other peak Jewish community in this country, Colin Rubenstein, the executive director of the Australia Israel Council told me not only was he not critical of the speech but he supported it and he was pleased that it had been given.
TONY JONES: So you flushed out a sort of difference of opinion in the Jewish community, have you?
Because here is what Jeremy Jones said ... to call someone Nazi is to invoke an image of genocide, of mass murder, of global conquest.
Do you disagree with that?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Well, what I have to say is that Jewish people in this country know that some of the most implacable opponents of the state of Israel in the Commonwealth Parliament are the two Green senators ... Senator Brown and Senator Nettle.
And they weren't very impressed.
TONY JONES: Is that tantamount to Nazism, is that what you're saying?
GEORGE BRANDIS: They seem to give comfort to the Greens when he made those remarks.
Can I also say that the historical comparison with the Nazis is not ... I'm not the first politician to have made that remark.
For instance, in May of last year Senator Brown, commenting on ... I'm referring to a report in the Canberra Times on 17 May last year ... Senator Brown, referring to what were alleged budget cuts to greenhouse abatement programs in last year's budget, likened David Kemp, the Environment Minister, to Joseph Goebels and said that the Government's environmental policy resembled the approach of the Nazis.
TONY JONES: Can I just stick to your speech for a moment.
We'll bring Bob Brown in a second.
You made a 20-minute speech developing this theme.
You quoted huge tracts from so-called scholarly texts, we can only assume that they were indeed, but I've read that you plan to continue to develop this theme in further speeches, is that correct?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Yes.
What I was trying to do last Tuesday and what I will continue to do is two things.
First of all, I want to change the perception of the Greens.
You see, the Greens have got under the political radar screen in this country and I think they've got most people convinced that they are not a danger, they are not a threat, that they are basically well-meaning oddballs or perhaps they're radical liberals.
But they're not that.
They're people who invoke the institution of Parliament but they defy the institution of Parliament as Senator Brown did last week.
They're people who claim to be defenders of free speech and yet try to shout down somebody, President Bush, exercising the right of speech.
TONY JONES: We'll move onto that in some detail, I want to get Bob Brown first of all to respond to the claim you've effectively made, that he and his party are Nazis influenced by Nazism.
BOB BROWN, GREENS SENATOR: Well it's totally abhorrent and of course, it's totally misplaced in the Parliament that anybody should refer to anybody else in those terms.
The Senator is misrepresenting me there in a number of ways in saying I've used that terminology.
But also in saying we are against the state of Israel.
We have just released a policy which endorses the state of Israel and an independent state of Palestine.
But misrepresentation is what we're into here.
What is particularly alarming about this obnoxious use of the term Nazis on any other political opponents is is that the PM endorses it.
And he says that he understands and supports what Senator Brandis is saying.
So it's not just Senator Brandis here.
This is coming from the PM's office.
And it's aimed at political opponents, not on the issues of the day, but to put labels on.
I particularly remember Pauline Hanson's speech in 1996 which was very divisive and very racist and PM Howard said nothing for five months.
But within a couple of days of us speaking up in defence of law, international law, and Australians, in the same chamber last Friday, PM Howard sends Senator Brandis out on this line.
It's very poor politics.
It's outrageous not ... the Greens can of course live with this.
TONY JONES: Let me just quickly raise with you the accusation that you've used the same terms to describe Liberal members.
You've referred to Dr Kemp as being equivalent to Goebels for example.
You acknowledge that you actually said that?
BOB BROWN: No, I don't.
And if I ever did, I would immediately apologise.
I would not brand anybody else with that label.
It's offensive and shouldn't be used in politics.
And of course that's what PM Howard and Senator Brandis should be doing here in regard to the Greens.
You know, they're ... we're going to get a lot more of this as the Greens build.
I've just come from a dinner in Wollongong of 300 people celebrating Michael Organ's first year in the Parliament there.
And they're middle Australians, they're right across the spectrum, wonderful people, good stout-hearted Australians who are making a different political decision.
They like the Greens, they're terrifically impressed that we stood up in the Parliament the other day and that's worrying the Government.
TONY JONES: Let me go back to George Brandis.
What is behind this George Brandis?
And did you inform the PM or any senior Government member prior to making this speech?
GEORGE BRANDIS: I haven't discuss the matter with the PM, no.
Now, Tony, you cut me off before.
TONY JONES: Hang on a sec, I'll just finish with that question, though, because you only answered half of it.
Did you inform any senior Government member prior to making this speech?
GEORGE BRANDIS: I'm not going to talk about conversations with colleagues.
You asked me about the PM.
I haven't discussed the matter with the PM.
TONY JONES: No, but the key question here is, is this part of a new tactic to take on the Greens, which has been endorsed by the Government, not just you, it's not an individual thing that you're doing, and I imagine that by not saying whether you did or did not discuss it, you're refusing to deny that you discussed it with senior members of the Government, therefore we can assume, perhaps, it is a tactic.
GEORGE BRANDIS: You ... can assume what you like but you asked me whether I discussed it with the PM and the answer is no, I haven't spoken to the PM about it.
TONY JONES: And I also asked you did you discuss it with any other senior member of government?
GEORGE BRANDIS: And I'm telling you I'm not going to go into conversations with colleagues.
And it's not fair for you to expect me to.
I'd like the opportunity to reply too ... because you cut me off before.
TONY JONES: Go ahead.
GEORGE BRANDIS: In relation to what Bob said about the state of Israel, you read his speeches and you read Senator Kerry Nettle's speeches in the lead-up to the Iraq war, where they asserted, in effect, a moral equivalence between Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and the Saddam Hussein regime ... to see what they think about the state of Israel.
Secondly, what I was going to go on to say a moment ago was this ... what I also want to do, is do something we do too seldom in this country and have a debate about ideas and the source of ideas.
You see, I claim that the ideology that underlies Green politics is something new and different.
In this country I think --
TONY JONES: Well no, you're actually claiming it's old and racist and it's old and Nazi.
I read your speech, you're claiming and it's not new in fact, but it stems right back to the 1850s, to the origins of Nazism.
GEORGE BRANDIS: No, let me make the point in my own words.
I said new in this country, new in this country.
And you're right, because the source of the ideas which inspire Green politics, you can trace all the way back to the dark forests of German romanticism two centuries ago.
We don't have enough debate about ideas in this country.
We're used to the idea of a paradigm in which there's a left, right spectrum in which the Labor Party represents the left, and they're a kind of amalgam of socialism, although they've given up on socialism on the left and on the right you have the Liberal Party which is an amalgam of liberals and conservatives.
My point is that the ideas that inspire the ideology of contemporary Green politics, and that is a debate that is raging in western Europe at the moment, don't fit into that paradigm.
The sources, the mainsprings of contemporary Green politics arise outside the Liberal democratic or indeed the social democratic tradition.
TONY JONES: Let me ... we haven't got endless time to discuss this.
I want Bob Brown to respond very specifically to that question you raised.
Did the Greens' ideology stem from the black forest of Germany?
BOB BROWN: No, that's very nasty rubbish from Senator Brandis.
The next thing he will be claiming is that the Christian Church and the Buddhist religion because they've got environmental components to them are in some way related to Nazism.
It's an extraordinary blinkered but very, very nasty type of politic we're seeing here and we know it goes much further into the Government than Senator Brandis.
The Greens are very much bound on social justice.
The protection of the environment of course.
Democracy is an absolute hallmark and so is peaceful resolution of ideas.
But ... and these are ideas which have great traction with people and we've manifested those.
For example, we've been very much opposed to this Government taking innocent people and putting thousands of them behind razor wire, including children, and we've fought very hard to get those decent, warm-hearted human beings, who are just like us, out of those appalling conditions on Australian soil into Australian society.
This Government's been fighting to keep them behind the razor wire.
The Greens have been fighting to give them dignity and a human existence in our society.
That in itself asks the question ... who are the compassionate, human beings fighting for the rights of individuals and you have to come down on the side of the Greens as against the record of the Howard Government.
TONY JONES: What do you think is behind this, then?
We saw what happened when the juggernaut of One Nation became extremely dangerous, I suppose, politically.
Tony Abbott was tasked to go and destroy One Nation.
Do you get the impression this is what's happening now to the Greens?
BOB BROWN: Yes, Machiavelli said centuries ago if you're going to change the world get ready to be squashed by those with most to lose.
And in this case it's the Government and its supporters.
And we're ready for that.
But it is going to be interesting in the coming months, because the Greens are growing in popularity ... we've gone from 2,000 members in 2000 to 7,000 now.
We do have an enormous public support coming.
It's still small but it is very potent and the Government does not like that.
They want to keep the two-party system going as more and more voters in Australia are saying let's have difference and let's welcome in other parties like the Greens.
TONY JONES: Let me welcome George Brandis back into this conversation.
George Brandis, do you find, does the Government find the populism of the Greens as threatening now as the populism of Pauline Hanson was once?
GEORGE BRANDIS: Tony, you were one of the journalists at the forefront of criticising the Liberal Party in relation to One Nation in two ways.
First of all, you said we didn't take One Nation seriously, we didn't anticipate what was behind One Nation, we didn't go out into the market place and expose them.
Secondly, and we had this debate on this program only about six weeks ago, you --
TONY JONES: My point --
GEORGE BRANDIS: For going about the antagonised.
TONY JONES: No, I didn't criticise Tony Abbott for that.
In fact, if you want to go back over the transcripts, we were talking about Tony Abbott's characterisation of what he was doing and whether or not he was telling the truth about it.
That's a different question.
Do you now believe the Greens represent the same sort of threat that One Nation represented?
GEORGE BRANDIS: I think they represent a different kind of threat to democratic politics in this country.
But, if the Liberal Party made a mistake in not exposing One Nation for what it was early enough in the piece a few years ago, then that's not a mistake we're going to make with the Greens.
For a very long time now Bob Brown has had clear air.
Somebody, I can't remember who, but somebody last week said that he'd become the de facto leader of the Leader of the Opposition.
There is a lot to be exposed about the Greens, about the ideas that underlie them, about the intellectual traditions to which they are heir and it's about time somebody blew the whistle on them.
That was the purpose of my speech in the Parliament.
BOB BROWN: We're going to look forward to this debate.
If there's one thing we do want to see, it is greeter analysis of what the Greens are putting forward as an alternative to a Government which has lost touch with the Australian people.
TONY JONES: Bon Brown, let me analyse something quickly, because we are nearly out of time, that led to this, that's the interjections that you made during the Bush speech.
Would you be prepared to admit that that actually was political theatre designed in the end to get votes and to get your message across to a wide audience?
BOB BROWN: No, absolutely not.
I got up, and Kerry Nettle got up, and spoke on behalf of Australia in a forum which is ours.
It's the people of Australia's.
We're elected representatives.
There is no circumstance in which that Parliament should be turned into a place where parliamentarians effectively are muzzled.
And particularly when great issues like the free trade agreement, like the incarceration of Australians in Guantanamo Bay when President Bush has repatriated his Americans out of that hell hole, these are issues which we have a right to speak up in our own elected Parliament.
Of course, what the Liberals are saying manners are much more important than human rights.
We don't agree with that.
And manners are more important than the welfare of Australians and Australians speaking up in their own Parliament, we simply do not agree with that.
GEORGE BRANDIS: No, Bob --
TONY JONES: Just a couple of seconds, George Brandis, because I'm really sorry, that we have run out of time.
Just a couple of seconds.
GEORGE BRANDIS: What we say is that your claim to be exercising free speech is a fraudulent claim.
You were trying to shout down someone.
It's a pretty strange use of the word free speech when you're trying to prevent somebody else being heard.
TONY JONES: Alright, we're going to have to leave it there, I'm sorry to say.
We could probably have kept going for half an hour or so, but that's where we'll have to leave it.
George Brandis, Bob Brown, thanks to both of you for coming in to join us tonight.
GEORGE BRANDIS: Thanks, Tony.
BOB BROWN: Thank you.
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