Bob Brown of the Franklin River

Plot

Bob Brown had ordinary beginnings, the family and support and schooling most Australian boys get, and excellent prospects in his career. Then he chose differently... Shy, by no means outgoing, he seems a most unlikely person to have become a leader of a social movement. He talks slowly, likes simple pleasures, likes living in the bush. It is hard to imagine this man playing a leading role in a turbulent campaign which stirred a nation's conscience. Brown did just that. The streets of the state capitals filled with the largest demonstrations since the Vietnam War. Support for Brown and the thousand who were arrested cut across political, class, ethnic and religious boundaries. International attention was drawn to a remote corner of distant Tasmania. A federal government was changed; the electoral campaign conducted by Brown and his supporters was the envy of the established political parties. And all this to protect a wild river. Or was what Bob Brown stands for about something more? The fate of one river became a powerful symbol. Brown and others like him had reaffirmed the possibility of change, here and now.