33 Facts About Peter Garrett

Peter Robert Garrett was born on 16 April 1953 and is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and former politician.

In 1973, Garrett became the lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil.

Peter Garrett served as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation for ten years before being elected for the Labor Party as the Member of the House of Representatives for the seat of Kingsford Smith in the 2004 election.

Peter Garrett attended Gordon West Public School and then Barker College in Hornsby before studying politics at the Australian National University, where he was a resident at Burgmann College, and later law at the University of New South Wales.

Peter Garrett's father died from an asthma attack while Peter was in his teens, and his mother died in a fire at the family home when he was in his early twenties.

Peter Garrett managed to escape the fire, but his mother was asleep upstairs and he was unable to rescue her.

In 1973, Peter Garrett became the lead singer for the rock band Midnight Oil, after responding to an advertisement placed by one of the band's founding members, Rob Hirst.

Peter Garrett was invited to join the international board of Greenpeace in 1993 for a two-year term.

Peter Garrett served as an adviser and patron to various cultural and community organisations, including Jubilee Debt Relief, and was a founding member of the Surfrider Foundation.

In 2000, Peter Garrett was awarded the Australian Humanitarian Foundation Award in the environment category and in 2001 he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales.

Peter Garrett announced his departure from Midnight Oil in 2002, saying he wished to concentrate more fully on his environmental and social activism.

On 7 July 2007, Peter Garrett presented Crowded House at the Australian leg of Live Earth.

On 14 March 2009, Peter Garrett performed live at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with Midnight Oil for Sound Relief, in order to raise money for the Victorian bushfire appeal.

On 5 May 2016, after the conclusion of his career in Parliament, Peter Garrett announced that Midnight Oil would be reforming and that they would be touring in 2017, including a trip to the United States.

Peter Garrett refused at first, but after consulting his bandmates, he agreed on the condition that he head the ticket.

In 2015, Peter Garrett alleged in his autobiography and an ABC documentary that he had been handed an envelope containing "hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars" in cash by a representative of Clubs NSW at a function following the 2004 election.

Peter Garrett subsequently retracted his allegations and stated that the envelope in fact contained a cheque, which he returned, and that the incident "took place before he was elected, which would mean the possible offence of bribery or attempted bribery of a public official would not apply".

Six months after entering parliament, Peter Garrett was appointed Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts.

Peter Garrett expressed support for the US-Australia alliance, and recanted earlier opposition to the Joint US-Australian Defence Facility at Pine Gap.

Peter Garrett stated that, while he would argue the case for environmentalism inside the Labor Party, he would observe the ultimate decision of the party caucus, including accepting any decision on the "no new uranium mines" policy.

Peter Garrett campaigned for Labor in the 2006 Victorian state election, causing some controversy when he sent a letter to voters in the seat of Melbourne, where Labor and the Greens were embroiled in a tight contest.

Peter Garrett supported Rudd in that month's leadership spill, a decision he would later come to regret, saying years later that it was "certainly the biggest mistake" he made in his political career.

Peter Garrett refused federal funding that would have enabled a remount of Elke Neidhardt's acclaimed Adelaide production of Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2008.

Peter Garrett's decision was praised by the uranium industry, but criticised by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the organisation Peter Garrett previously led, which said the decision would result in the mine spreading acid and radioactive pollution over 100 square kilometres.

That same year saw Peter Garrett rejected proposals to impound the Mary River through the construction of the Traveston Crossing Dam.

Peter Garrett determined that the impacts of the proposed dam on the threatened species of Australian lungfish, the Mary River Turtle and the Mary River cod would be too great and of national environmental significance.

All along, Peter Garrett properly put his objections to the administration of the program on the record.

In September 2011, Peter Garrett announced an alteration of the National School Chaplaincy Program by offering schools the opportunity to employ, instead of "a religious support worker", a "secular student well-being officer".

In 2013, Peter Garrett pledged to increase funding to public schools as recommended in the Gonski Report, in order to reduce inequality in educational performance.

Peter Garrett noted that the National School Chaplaincy Program needed to change their guidelines because "the line between chaplains acting to support students in the provision of general pastoral care and proselytising was too easily crossed".

Peter Garrett is the uncle of Maude Garrett, formerly of Nickelodeon Australia and SourceFed.

Peter Garrett refers to this event in the opening line of the Earth and Sun and Moon track "In the Valley".

In 2007, artist Michael Mucci entered a portrait of Peter Garrett in the Archibald Prize, while in 2022 Anh Do's portrait was a finalist.