Environmentalist and former Greens leader Bob Brown, 78, met sheep farmer Paul Thomas, 67, in the late 1980s. A decade later, a bushwalk and a bag of croissants were the only aphrodisiacs they needed.
Bob: I met Paul in the late 1980s when he asked me to speak to a meeting of the Gay and Lesbian Law Reform Group in Hobart. I gave them some tips on activism, like lobby every politician in the state, get in the letters pages and hold an opinion poll: if you don’t like it, don’t release it!
Bob Brown, at right, taught Paul Thomas to be tolerant: “I saw how he put up with some of the imbeciles in Parliament, how he was polite to them in the corridor even after they’d been throwing nasty barbs at him.”Credit: Adam Gibson
In the early 1990s, Paul joined the Greens and, in 1996, he helped on my election campaign for the federal Senate, which I knew would be really close. It was the eve of the vote and Paul was getting our campaign office ready for the election-night party. He was the only other person there and I said to him, “I’m going for a bushwalk to relax.” And he said, “I’ll come with you: I know a place.” And so we went and sat on some rocks beside the North West Bay River, off the south end of Mount Wellington. We talked about life and the state of the world and I realised I wanted to spend more time with him.
I thought I’d be on my own for the rest of my existence, so meeting Paul changed everything. We related to one another. Like me, he’d grown up gay and been trapped in a homophobic culture. This was when you got 20 years in jail for homosexual activity.
Paul’s strength is that he’s not a worrier. In 2002, John Howard put up the Regional Forest Agreement Bill, which would destroy Australia’s forests. For two weeks, I fought every single participle in that bill. When it got through, I kept a brave face in public but privately it wreaked havoc. I flew home from Canberra and drove an hour south to Cygnet, where Paul lives, and I walked through the door and descended into tears. Paul said, “Let’s just sit down and have dinner.”
“We don’t fight. We don’t raise our voices; we’ve never had to.”
There are no secrets with us. When I was in the Senate, I called him every day and sent a card every week. When I left the Senate, he was asked, “What will Bob do now?” And he said, “Hopefully, more of the housework.” I received an avalanche of tea towels and a very fine apron. Now we share the tasks. He’s the better cook, but I’m the better washer-upper. He’s a sheep farmer and still shears the sheep and crutches them. But when his sheepdog, Nick, died I became the rouseabout. I pull the dags off the wool and sweep the floor, and I try to get the sheep in. Paul says I’m too slow and I don’t take orders like a sheepdog, but I’m the best help he’s got.
We don’t gabble much. When we go bushwalking, we just walk along. It’s great because we hear every wallaby that thumps through the bush and every echidna rustling in the grass. Having that kind of companionship is like hitting the jackpot in the lottery of life, and I struck that jackpot with Paul.
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