Bob Brown - Personal Life

Personal Life

Brown lives in Hobart with his long-time partner, Paul Thomas, a farmer and activist whom he met in 1996.

Brown was the founder, in 1990, of the Australian Bush Heritage Fund, now Bush Heritage Australia, a non-profit environmental organisation dedicated to purchasing and preserving Australian bushland. He was President of the organisation until 1996. On 20 March 2011 Brown donated a 14-hectare (35-acre) property and house he had owned for 38 years to Bush Heritage Australia. The property is located 47 kilometres (29 miles) south-west of Launceston, Tasmania, in the Liffey Valley. According to Australian Geographic, it is a site of historic and symbolic significance.

Brown describes himself as a "lapsed Presbyterian".

In an interview with Richard Fidler on ABC radio, Nigel Brennan, an Australian photojournalist who was kidnapped in Somalia and held hostage for 462 days, revealed Brown had contributed $100,000 of his own money to help pay the ransom for his release. It was also revealed that Brown contacted Australian businessman Dick Smith asking that he also contributed funds towards the release of Brennan Brennan, who was released in November 2009, also stated in this interview that Brown had to borrow this money, an assertion also made in various media outlets at the time of Brennan's release. In the same interview, Brennan notes that in contrast to Brown's compassion, the Australian government seemed unconcerned with his welfare, with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd dismissing his mother's anxiety at having her son released because she wasn't showing Rudd the level of respect he deemed acceptable.

Bob Brown was inducted into the Hall of Frame at Coffs Harbour High School in July 2012, where he completed his first four years of high school.