Former Greens leader Bob Brown's arrest caught on video at Tasmanian forest protest
Former Greens leader Bob Brown has posted a video of his own arrest during a protest in a Tasmanian forest, and it may just been the dullest arrest footage ever recorded.
In the clip, which was uploaded to Dr Brown's Facebook page, he is seen speaking to a police officer during a community protest over logging in northwest Tasmania.
After the police officer asks Dr Brown to leave the site of the logging project at Lapoinya, Dr Brown politely refuses.
"You are likely to fall into a position where you can be arrested," the police officer tells the former Greens leader.
"That's right, officer. I'm here for the forests, they're here to destroy it, so we've got an impossible situation," he replies.
The officer then informs Dr Brown he is being arrested and tells him he must come to a police station.
"Ok, will do," he responds to a "No worries," from the police officer.
With that, the arrest was completed.
The 71-year-old has since been released on bail.
"I didn't go with the intention of being arrested, but when I saw the destruction, I had to take a stand," he told AAP after his release.
He has been charged with failing to comply with a direction to leave a business access area, and has been banned from going back to the Lapoinya logging area under the terms of his bail conditions.
Dr Brown said the area, including a bridle trial, was used by nature lovers before loggers moved in.
"It's now a bulldozed highway, a logging road with tree ferns, trees and shrubbery flattened, and bare earth.
"And they're getting ready to log the forest next door."
The former senator is urging federal environment minister Greg Hunt to protect Lapoinya's rare and endangered wildlife.
Dr Brown was arrested just before midday on January 25 after police arrived at the protest.
"I made that stand as I felt a real obligation not to turn my back on the place and leave," he told AAP.
The protest in Lapoinya began last week as Forestry Tasmania prepared to start logging the area's regrowth forest.
Steven Chaffer from the Bob Brown Foundation says the arrest reflects new "draconian" laws in Tasmania which prevent protests at workplaces.
Dr Brown is due to appear before Burnie Magistrates Court on March 15.
Tasmania's resources minister, Paul Harriss, has accused Dr Brown of a policy flip-flop.
"Bob Brown is a hypocrite," he said in a statement.
Mr Harriss says the former senator "didn't raise even a squeak" about Lapoinya when he signed off on the area's logging project while he was leader of the Greens.
The state government supports freedom of speech but "no protester is entitled to interfere with the right of other Tasmanians to earn a living", Mr Harriss said.
