Who can forget those hands or
his charismatic stage presence?WORDS HUGH BALDWIN
PHOTOGRAPHY MIKE NEWLING

When Peter Garrett started fronting rock band Midnight Oil in the 1970s, he was asking pointed questions of a federal government that included John Howard. Thirty years later, he’s still asking questions – of a government led by Howard – but as Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage and Shadow Minister for the Arts, following his election in 2004.

Midnight Oil remain one of Australia’s most successful international music exports, and a distinctively Australian one. From the band’s beginning to when they called it a day in 2002 after 29 years, their lyrics, music and attitude offered a unique insight into the country: surf, earth and modern life.

The combination of their powerful music and the social, political and environmental ideas behind the passionate lyrics was hugely popular. “There was an audience that was interested in what we had to say, and interested in something a little out of the mainstream, but with a character that was very strongly Australian as well,” Garrett explains. “We never wanted to be anything other than a band that was very much drawing off the energy and the culture and the community of Australia.”

A trained lawyer with a gift of
the gab, Garrett is no wallflower
in parliament“I think what we did was natural to us and right for its time,” he adds. “And if you look over that span and period of time when we were making records [16 in total], we were in part expressing, just like other songwriters do, things that were on our minds. There were emotional things there as well – but it was also signposting what we were seeing and the period of time we were living in.”

If the Australian Labor Party (ALP) is successful in this year’s federal election, Garrett may be able to harness the zeal for Australia he demonstrated as the iconic singer of Oils, in government. Though his two terms as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) might seem more relevant, he says there are similarities between band politics and the bristly negotiations of party politics: “You bring some of the enthusiasm and real-life experiences and focus on issues that you’ve had into the job. It’s just within a framework of policy. Now, policy can be really fantastic stuff to talk about, but it’s built on the substrata, if you like, of the ideals.”

Garrett during one of his typically
impassioned performances with a
message to remember
Photo: Reuters Photo Still, everyone knows federal politics is not just about issues, it’s also about jockeying for position and scoring points off your opponent any way you can – and many in the current government seem to see  Garrett’s previous profession as fair game. Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, most notably, quoted the lyrics of “Beds are Burning” across the floor as a stab at the ALP, but as Garrett says, “it all backfired” because Costello had misinterpreted the words.

“I think that all the people that listen to Midnight Oil know how important those songs were and how we felt about them,” Garrett adds. “And they know that trying to trivialise them or trying to make a political point out of them is to misunderstand the nature of music and what had happened for the last 20 years.” Listening to those lyrics today, many of the songs remain profoundly relevant: US troops, the environment, uranium mining.

Looking back at his first term in parliament, Garrett reflects on first setting foot in Canberra as a politician and how he coped with the transition from one stage to another. “I think the interesting thing for me is that people tend to have a slightly lower opinion of pollies than they do of other professions,” says Garrett. “And yet I think the opportunity to serve in parliament, regardless of which party you are in, is an extraordinary privilege. I [know I] felt the specialness of the occasion and quite a sense of moment about the place.”

Garrett maintains that his career shift hasn’t affected the friends and connections he made in the rock ’n’ roll universe and “it doesn’t stop people [in the music biz] offering up advice as to what should be happening,” he laughs. “It wouldn’t be Australia if that wasn’t going on.”

Peter Garrett with then premier
of New South Wales Bob Carr
on Malabar Headland, Maroubra

And while he’s still just beginning his parliamentary career and won’t be drawn on whether he hopes to sit in Howard’s chair one day, some members of the music industry have made their feelings clear. At the 2006 ARIA (Australian Record Industry Awards), Silverchair singer Daniel Johns even wrote “PG 4 PM” on the stage backdrop in big letters – a big, unabashed statement worthy of Garrett himself.

His own big statements have included staging an impromptu protest concert on the back of a truck outside the Exxon Building in New York, and running for the senate under the Nuclear Disarmament Party banner in the 1980s. He concedes that the edges to his personal beliefs are not as sharp as they were 20 years ago, but he doesn’t shy away from his previous life.

“There are some things that you continue to grow and deepen your understanding of,” he says. “Some things you carry through the responses you had in that period of time. And even when there are things that you’ve got a really strong view about [now] and you want to express it… quite often you are expressing it within the context of a team and being a team player.”

Across all his life achievements, Garrett is recognised around the world as a devoted environmentalist who is also passionate, patriotic and eloquent. During his two tenures as ACF president he scored significant wins for places such as Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory. Garrett’s dedication to the environment was recognised with an Australian Humanitarian Foundation Award (2000) and an Order of Australia (Member General Division) in 2003.

As Peter Garrett MP, ex-rocker, husband and father of three, he may not be able to take up causes with the same overt relish the Oils once did, but he still has the same powerful tool at his disposal: words. “Words are incredibly important whatever you are doing,” he says, “whether you’re singing them, whether you’re having a conversation with a mate after work, whether you’re wooing your loved one, or whether you’re in politics trying to communicate ideas.”

On Travelling

“There is so much of Australia I absolutely love, and it’s very difficult to do a hit-list of places I’d like to travel to. But certainly Western Australia’s Kimberley region is one. I also love travelling to far north Queensland, around Cairns, Townsville and the Great Barrier Reef – one of our most important national and international treasures and now facing significant challenges due to climate change. And I’m pretty partial to the New South Wales coast. This is where I grew up and spent a lot of my life surfing.

Vietnam was one of the best trips I’ve had for some time. The country is growing and on the move, yet tourism isn’t the biggest feature of the country. So you feel like you’re in the middle of a place that is getting on with itself, yet has such a rich heritage and distinct history – one that we know well from our own involvement in Vietnam. I found the pace of the place and the variety of landscapes really well worth visiting.

Hugh Baldwin says:
I confessed to Peter that I was once caught dancing Peter Garrett-style – wearing only a towel – around my girlfriend’s (now my wife) bedroom by a real-estate agent and a family who were inspecting the house. “Were you going full tilt?” Peter asked. “Full tilt,” I said. “Great,” he said.