Dear supporters
Yesterday I received this wonderful message from one of the men I admire most in the world.
Dear Greg, what an Earth champion you are! I wish you well but hope you will not come to physical or mental harm because of the indifferent men and women currently in charge. We will need you for the long haul too. My very warmest wishes and admiration. Bob Brown.
Well over 1,000 people have messaged me or come to shake my hand. But this message really meant a lot. There are few people in Australia with the integrity and compassion of Bob Brown. He cares for more than Nature. He cares for people and our society.
Back in 2005 I met Bob Brown in an airport when he was a Senator and I was working in remote Indigenous communities. I told him about the scourge of petrol sniffing and how it was taking hundreds of young Aboriginal lives. He gave me his mobile phone number on the spot and within weeks he came out to the desert and slept on the verandah of a mum who'd lost her son to petrol sniffing. He then worked with then Treasurer Peter Costello and other mobs in the Parliament to secure a multi million dollar program to roll out unsniffable fuel across Central Australia. That program is still running today. Through that, Bob Brown has saved hundreds and hundreds of young Aboriginal people for death and disability.
It's 5am and by the time you open this email, I will back in front of Parliament House. It's the last day of sitting before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the rest of the pollies jet back off to their homes. I'll be doing my best to hold them accountable.
Thank you again for all your love and encouragement. My body is starting to deteriorate. I have a tight chest and my breathing is laboured. My brain isn't as good as it usually is. And for some reason my arms and legs are aching.
PS: I'm kind of starting to feel kind of like a big deal! Florence Steel from the Australian National University Art School has been coming in and doing a painting of me 'en plien air'!
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