Laurie Oakes: What's wrong with the way asylum seekers are treated in Indonesia at the moment? What sort of ground rules do we need?

Bob Brown: Well, from the newspaper reports, they're imprisoned in pretty appalling conditions compared to that which Australia - Australians generally would - accept. I hope that, ah, Prime Minister Rudd will be calling on his Indonesian counterpart, in Thailand, to sign the international refugee conventions which guide basic ground rules for fast processing of asylum seekers - sending back those who are not genuine, but ensuring a future away from the threat that they've fled for those who are genuine.

Laurie Oakes: It sounds as though you're accepting this idea of the Indonesian solution.

Bob Brown:` No. I think the Indonesian solution is, um, is not acceptable. While asylum seekers are being held in what are pretty appalling conditions - you know, we've looked at the Australian-funded, um... holding place in Indonesia - it's got no power. It's got none of the amenities that we would expect for a decent jail, let alone a decent holding place. And people - some people being held there for many years - 5-10 years - that's not acceptable. Wouldn't be acceptable under international law, and Prime Minister Rudd simply can't shunt asylum seekers and fund that sort of system without ultimately coming under huge opposition from the Australian people as they get to know more about it.

Laurie Oakes: Now, apparently the male asylum seekers onboard the Australian customs ship "Oceanic Viking" have gone on a hunger strike. Obviously this is an attempt to pressure the Australian Government. Can that sort of thing work? Should it be allowed to work?

Bob Brown: Unfortunately, it won't work. And I, for one, don't support people who are potentially going to do harm to themselves. But it does underlie the desperation of people who are fleeing, at the moment, from appalling circumstances in Afghanistan and in Sri Lanka. And Laurie, one of the things the Australian governments - the last one and this one - haven't done as far as Sri Lanka is concerned is get to the root cause of this problem. And there should be a lot more pressure on the Sri Lankan authorities to be treating the Tamil populations with a great deal more decency than we're seeing at the moment.

Laurie Oakes: This is the push factor Mr Rudd talks about - the pressures on Tamils in Sri Lanka to run away, to escape. What should he be doing? The Europeans are talking about sanctions. Should we do that?

Bob Brown: Well, they are and that's because there's 250,000 Tamil - civilians - being held in what's called concentration camps, being held in pretty appalling conditions. Some of them are being released at the moment, but the government authorities are going through those camps to try and weed out the people they feel were leading the insurrection. But it's causing enormous anguish not just there, but around the world and the conditions are not acceptable, and the Australian Government should be doing more to speak out about that.

Laurie Oakes: Should we consider sanctions?

Bob Brown: I think we should be talking with the European, and other countries around the world, who are alarmed enough about this to be looking at sanctions, but certainly putting much more pressure onto the Sri Lankan Government than we've seen from Kevin Rudd so far.

Laurie Oakes: Well, Kevin Rudd was talking to the Indonesian President, he's done that several times over the last week or two, should he be talking to the Sri Lankan leadership?

Bob Brown: He should be. And publicly as the European leaders are doing. You know, it took Norway to come around to the other side of the world to try and stop the war in Sri Lanka, while the then-Howard Government did nothing. We need to see more action from Australian governments at flashpoints in our own region if we're going to stop this pressure for people to be leaving in boats and seeking asylum here in Australia.

Laurie Oakes: Let me ask you about the Higgins and Bradfield by-elections, which apparently will be held on December 5. Labor's not running, so the Greens versus the Coalition.

Bob Brown: What an appalling thing for Rudd Labor to have left the people of Bradfield and Higgins with no Labor candidate, that's because Labor thinks this is an advantage. I don't think it is. We Greens have put up very good candidates - Susie Gemmell in Bradfield, and Clive Hamilton now in Higgins. People have got a very attractive, well thought-out Greens candidate to vote for in these ostensibly Liberal seats and if they're returned to the House of Representatives in Canberra, it would give a very account of themselves as local representative.

Laurie Oakes: Realistically, you don't have a hope of winning either seat, do you?

Bob Brown: Very tough. We're part of the democratic process, offering Australians good choices as the Greens do grow in support. I expect our vote will grow in both those elections and we're also savvy enough to know that we've got people with good common sense, responsible people, people who have a great deal of nous, should a Green be elected, they will account for themselves very well in the House of Representatives, which does need alternative voices to the Coalition and the Government, which look alike on so many issues now. And it would be an injection of new ideas into the House of Representatives if either Susie in Bradfield or Clive in Higgins were to be returned.

Laurie Oakes: The selection of Clive Hamilton in Higgins suggests that you think climate change will be the issue in those two seats; is that what you're fighting it on?

Bob Brown: It is an issue, it's a big issue. The economy's important and remember this, it was the Greens that allowed the $42 billion stimulus package improved with a much better job component through the Parliament when Turnbull - Coalition was blocking it earlier this year - it saved Australia from a recession. The Greens are presenting ourselves as an across-the-board party, but climate change is an important issue and on that issue, we're seeing the Government and Opposition putting up a prescription for utter failure based on massive payouts to the polluters on the basis that the more you pollute, the more you pay, and that's the Australian people's money that's being diverted across to the polluters, which should be going to Australian households, for example, to lower the cost of power instead of increase it. Both the Government and the Opposition prescription aiming at 5% reduction will increase the cost of power going to Australian households. The Greens will reduce it but get a target of 25-40% reduction in greenhouse gases. That's because we believe the polluters should pay, they shouldn't be paid as Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull want it, they should pay for the cost of the pollution that they're causing.

Laurie Oakes: I want to ask you more about climate change in a second but you mentioned the economy was an issue in these by-elections. Clive Hamilton's a pretty hardline candidate who reckons that economic growth is bad. Now, do you reckon the voters of the affluent suburbs of Higgins in Melbourne will agree with him?

Bob Brown: Well, what Clive has very clearly on the record, is that the happiness, the general happiness, of the electorate is what we've got to aim for. And that simply consuming more goods in an age of the planet having a finite resource base is ultimately daft. The Greens conference - the Green New Deal Conference - which is occurring at the moment in Melbourne, had prominent British economist Tim Jackson yesterday fed through to that conference talking about just this issue. It's prosperity we want.

Laurie Oakes: So is Clive Hamilton, the happiness candidate?

Bob Brown: And the prosperity candidate. And absolutely got his feet on the ground, and has been talking about it. The impact the economy of climate change is going to make all Australians the poorer, and there's more to this than simply the consumption of resources. There's security in the future and a security in the world we're handing on to the next generation, and we're thinking responsibly about that and responding to some of the best brains, scientific and economic, in the world.

Laurie Oakes: Mr Hamilton says that the political system - the democratic processes of our democratic system - have failed on climate change. Do you agree with him?

Bob Brown: Yes, I do. I think that the two big parties have lined up, not in the interests of the Australian people, but in the interests of the big coal producers. 75% owned from outside this country. And that massive - $16.5 billion compensation - that Kevin Rudd wants to give to the big polluters, including aluminium, cement and so on - billions of that is going to go outside the country. Shouldn't that be spent here in helping people to have solar power, solar hot-water systems, insullation in the house; fast, efficient public transport and a much better regulated, renewable energy base and energy efficiency base than more pollution?

Laurie Oakes: Well, Mr Hamilton says "because the democratic system has failed" he said in a speech earlier this year, "the only hope lies in a campaign of radical activism." Do you agree, and what sort of radical activism are you advocating?

Bob Brown: Well, I guess Clive's referring there to the sort of activism that saved the Franklin River, which has now got hundreds of people employed on the West Coast of Tasmania and a much more buoyant economy than we've have had otherwise. I mean, I come from that background.

Laurie Oakes: I know, that's where I first met you. You camped down there ..

Bob Brown: If you remember us taking Bill and Dallas Hayden up river, which, of course, helped in the campaign...

Laurie Oakes: How can you emulate that on this issue?

Bob Brown: Well, I think people have to be outspoken. Always peacefully. But we are an open, free-flowing democracy, and I think it's very important. We saw great protests against the Iraq war and the hastening of the withdrawal - I think that brought forward the withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. We - when it comes to the economy, there is no doubt the lobbying system, the big-monied lobbying interests - are perverting the way in which we get a result. Let me give an example. Kevin Rudd's aiming at a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and Malcolm Turnbull ticks off on that. But they both want to keep logging Australia's forests and woodlands. If we put a small component of the $16 billion compensation into getting out of the destruction of Australia's native forests and woodlands, we'd have a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases and that can be done very rapidly but the power of the lobby interest is blocking that, even though 80% of Australians in opinion polls support it. It's the 20% who have the vested interest who've got both the big parties in their thrall at the expense of the Australian people.

Laurie Oakes: Two quick issues to finish with. Firstly, we've just heard that that oil leak in north-western Australia, the offshore rig is now covering 15,000 square kilometres with oil. Attempts to block it so far - plug it so far have failed. Is there something that should have been done - should be being done that has been overlooked?

Bob Brown: Yes Laurie, Rachel Siewert called for an independent judicial inquiry from the outset to keep an eye on what's happening there and to learn from it. The Government's turned that down. We called for a rig, available from Woodside, to be brought on from the Australian coastline. They brought one from Asia - it took longer to get there. They're now bringing in new technology, they say, after the failure to block this leak. Why wasn't that brought in at the outset? And then the Government, just yesterday, announces it's giving this same company a massive new area for oil exploration in Australian waters. They're rewarding this failure, this massive environmental impact, which is going to have consequences for a long, long time to come, with further exploration leases. That is a government which is ecologically irresponsible. And Kevin Rudd, who's leading that ship, and Peter Garrett's been right out of this, has a lot of questions to answer about this oil spill. He has the responsibility for not only failing to get it under control - preventing it from the outset - but rewarding the very people who have caused it.

Laurie Oakes: Finally, a story in some papers today caught my eye, Treasury head, Ken Henry, who's the carer of the hairy-nosed wombat, is now speaking out about the culling of 50-million kangaroos, mainly to feed domestic pets. He says this shows that we can't meet environmental challenges as our population increases. Do you agree with him, and why haven't you recruited him as a Greens candidate?

Bob Brown: Well, I do. I think he's got a very big point here, that that industry needs very, very definite controls put upon it. I think Ken Henry's a very admirable Australian. I mean, he - and I've never done more than shake his hand, let me tell you.

Laurie Oakes: Are you going to try and sign him up?

Bob Brown: Well, that's where the Greens are going - economically responsible and it was his evidence before the Senate Committee that got us to support the stimulus package, which has saved the jobs of so many Australians, so, he's a good thinker and I think he's a great addition to the Australian political think tank, when times need such thinking. And bringing in the ecological component to all economic thinking in the future is going to be absolutely important if we're going to get it right.

Laurie Oakes: Senator, we thank you.

Bob Brown: Thanks, Laurie.