For 25 years Peter Garrett was the lead singer of an Australian rock band, Midnight oil. Yesterday the 54-year-old was appointed as Minister of environment, heritage and art of the new Australian Labor government.
Speaking of a dramatic career change.
In fact it is not as dramatic as it looks. Garrett has been an environmental activist for a long time. He served as head of the Australian Conservation Foundation and sat on the international board of Greenpeace. Garrett's first attempt at entering politics was in 1984, when he co founded the Nuclear Disarmament Party. In 2002 he quit the band to focus on his political career.
Still I had a hard time in associating "the manic presence of the towering, bald Garrett" with a government official when watching this video of the band's live performance.
P.S. This picture was taken at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, the band performed before John Howard and a television audience of hundreds of millions, wearing black tracksuits bearing the word "sorry." This referred to the Howard Government's refusal to apologise to Aboriginal Australians for the former policy of removing of Aboriginal children from their families.
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