Former Greens leader Bob Brown has emulated ex-Prime Minister John Howard’s advice, with a twist. Speaking in Tasmania this morning, Brown said,

“All parties, including Labor, should put the Dutton Coalition last because they’re extremists. They have got extreme positions on foreign policy, extreme positions on economic policy, extreme positions on social policy. Who knows what some of their environmental views are. They’re so extreme.

Not only do I call on Labor to put the Coalition last but I will really dump on any Greens division that tries to do some preference deal in an individual seat with the Dutton Coalition. You have got to put them last. We have to make sure it’s a young-people-friendly government.”

Brown said that he was not as big a has-been as Mr Howard, but he had tried to emulate Howard’s law-breaking when fined $500 recently for delaying the logging of Swift Parrot nesting trees in Tasmania.

“Here again, I am in John Howard’s shadow because his role as President Bush’s Deputy Sheriff in the illegal invasion of Iraq makes my effort look puny.”

“For every tree in Australia’s native forests I might have saved, Howard’s Regional Forest Agreements have destroyed thousands, along with their koalas and birdlife,” Brown conceded.

“And as the country faces unprecedented bushfires, floods and coral bleaching due to global warming, I have to say that the Greens’ efforts to stop it look minor compared to John Howard’s global role in pulling the rug from under any effective action.”

“Howard alone takes the cake for having abolished Australia’s motto of ‘a fair go’ (whoever hears it used these days?) and ‘black armband’ history – as if First Australians have nothing to complain about at all. Though it is the mark of even greater leadership these days that Dutton buried ‘The Voice’ and is for getting up mindlessly expensive nuclear power stations where Howard legislated to ban them,” Brown said.