So Peter Garrett, Minister for the Environment, won’t be answering questions on climate change in the House of Reps. Nor, if the press from the Bali climate change conference is any indication, will he be saying much out of the House – it’s the Rudd/Wong team issuing statements live from Bali at the moment. For the true believers, this is not a good sign.
Garrett was brought on board because he carried with him, as well as not inconsiderable public profile, a passionate and articulate advocacy for environmental conservation issues. Now, due partly to the MSM’s thirst for the trivial gaffes that Garrett has occasionally provided, it seems that the parliament to which he has been duly elected is joining Qantas lounges on the ever-growing list of locales where his unmediated passion is unwelcome.
To many of those who have despaired at Labor’s edge towards the centre (or beyond), Garrett is as important figure because he represents hope. Hope that the maniacally-dancing frontman of one of the nation’s most fiercely political bands would take that unbridled passion to the crushingly careful world of Australian politics, and drag it kicking and screaming into a more compassionate future. Hope that a man who performed at the Olympics wearing a “Sorry” shirt would stand up as a representative of the Australian people and enshrine that sentiment in law. Hope that a crusader for our environment would bring his insight and his experience on the front lines to the insulated public service town that is Canberra.
But it seems the time is not yet ripe for the Garrett show to roll into town. Yet the hope for the true believers endures. The hope that Garrett is, far from being neutered, a tamed beast. A circus tiger, perhaps. For now, he is happy to remain in his cage, run through the tricks, let his trainer be the boss. But come the day he is pushed too far – on the environment, on indigenous affairs, on the arts – he will snap. And with a fierce swipe of his razor-sharp claw, he will slash the ropes that bind him and eviscerate the parliament of Australia with such passionate ferocity, such fierce conviction, that politics as we know it will never be the same.
That hope endures because to let it die is to concede that Peter Garrett, who through the sheer force of his personality had pub yobs all over Australia singing passionately about indigenous land rights, has been de-balled by the vast Labor machine. And that’s simply too horrible to contemplate.
Wannabe or not, I judged him in Feb 1999 when he declined a big forest meeting Sydney Town Hall. Senator Brown made it. Don Henry sent his apology. Many notables. His own ACF local branch couldn’t get him interested .. because it meant criticising Bob Car
Since when did pub yobs think passionately about anything except sport? If Peter Garrett’s worth is only to attract the yob vote, his presence in parliament is meaningless and deserving of failure. Indigenous land rights? Give over.
Even if he is passionate, what can he say? The problems are technical and difficult and the answers are technical and difficult. Passion is superfluous at this point. Everybody acknowledges the problems but what are the valid answers? Nobody knows.
Parliament and government are not very hospitable environments for crusaders which is no doubt the reason Garrett has declined to be one. The wannabe crusaders are lining up to dump on him – I say give him a year or two in government and then judge.
He has entered the inner sanctum of power, his beliefs burning inside of him. He bears the burning waiting for his moment, earning trust, learning how the machine works….in a blink some TBs lose their nerve; but not this one