Bob Brown (b. 1944) is an environmental campaigner and the former Parliamentary Leader of the Australian Greens. The son of a country policeman, Brown studied medicine at Sydney University and in 1972 moved to Tasmania, where he worked as a general practitioner in Launceston. His passion for the Tasmanian wilderness was sparked by a rafting trip down the Franklin River in 1976, the same year that he became a founding member of the Wilderness Society. From then until 1983 he famously led the campaign against proposed dam-works on the Franklin, during which he was arrested and gaoled. The river was subsequently preserved with a World Heritage Listing. In 1983, he began a decade in the Tasmanian House of Assembly as the Member for Denison. He was elected to the Federal Senate as a member of the Tasmanian Greens in 1996 and later joined West Australian Greens Senator Dee Margetts in founding the Australian Greens. At the 2001 Federal election Brown was re-elected to the Senate with a greatly increased vote. By the time he retired from politics in April 2012, he had overseen the emergence of the Greens from a fringe to a mainstream political force. Brown remains one of the most-recognised Australian political figures, known for his outspokenness on the environment as well as human rights and social justice issues. His memoir Memo for a saner world was published in 2004.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Helga Leunig 2013
© Helga Leunig
Helga Leunig (4 portraits)
On one level The Companion talks about the most famous and frontline Australians, but on another it tells us about ourselves.
22 May 2020
Ensconced and meditative in crisp Tasmania, Joanna Gilmour pays tribute to passionate green advocate and photographer Olegas Truchanas.
Bob Brown discusses the events that occurred during the Franklin River campaign as depicted in his portrait by Harold 'The Kangaroo' Thornton.
