Bob Brown 1944

Passions

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Notable

Australian physician, ecologist and conservationist, politician. Standing up for his ideals, Bob Brown was named Australian of the Year on 1/26/1982. On 12/16/1982, he was arrested for trespassing on Hydro-Electric Commission property at Strahan and went to jail for 19 days. On 7/01/1983, the High Court ruled that the Hawke Government was constitutionally able to pass legislation to block the Gordon-below-Franklin dam. On 1/05/1983, Brown automatically filled a Senate vacancy and on 5/07/1989, his Green Independents won the balance of power in the Tasmanian parliament. He was re-elected in 1992 and in 1993 unsuccessfully contested the Federal seat of Denison. On 3/02/1996, he stood for a seat in the senate. The son of a policeman and raised in a household that supported the Country Party, Bob became a radical during the Vietnam War. He studied medicine at Sydney U. and served his two-year internship in Canberra. In 1970, coming to terms with his homosexuality, perplexed by organized religion and confused by a world filled with pain, he set off for London. Two years later he moved on to Launceston, Tasmania where he bought a house at Liffey, writing to his parents, "I'm home." He joined the Tasmanian conservation movement, gave up his medical practice and became director of the Wilderness Society. Link to Wikipedia biography