Rock star in for a rough ride in politics

By GREG ANSLEY

Tall, bald, craggy and way out there, Peter Garrett is in his own way as much an Australian icon as Uluru. But while the vast rock sits unchanging, in the middle of the continent, the former Midnight Oil singer is reshaping himself for a new political dreaming.

The ageing rock star, environmentalist and anti-nuclear campaigner this week dived into the mainstream to take up Opposition Leader Mark Latham's offer of a blue-ribbon Labor seat for an all-but-guaranteed ride to the top.

Along the way he outed conservative Prime Minister John Howard as something of a closet fan of the band that put the far left to music, gave his blessing to the US spy base at Pine Gap, and became an advocate for a party that Australia's most prominent Green, Senator Bob Brown, condemns for "sending chainsaws into Tasmania and feeding 1080 to endangered species".

Not to mention carving a deep gouge in the Labor Party itself. The man who so passionately argued for the right of the people to decide, rode roughshod over the locals who wanted to select their own candidate for this year's election rather than have an unwanted outsider imposed on them.

On the beach at Maroubra, with Latham beside him and party minders keeping furious locals at bay, Garrett on Thursday confirmed that he would seek the eastern Sydney seat of Kingsford-Smith, vacated in a surprise move by retiring former Labor minister Laurie Brereton.

"Today I've nailed my colours to the mast," Garrett said. "It's an important day for me, for Labor and I hope for the country."

Garrett the politician is Latham's creature. His only previous fling was in 1984 when he stood unsuccessfully as a Nuclear Disarmament Party candidate for the Senate. Early this year he turned down an approach by Brown to stand for the Greens.

Latham had also been sounding Garrett out since winning Labor leadership in February, hoping for a pillar around which he could rebuild support that had been leaching out to the Greens at an alarming rate. Although a thoroughly middle-aged 51, Garrett's high radical profile was also a potential bolster for the votes of younger Australians.

At the last federal election in 2001, when the Greens won about 5 per cent of the total vote, Labor lost the southern New South Wales coastal seat of Cunningham to Greens candidate Michael Organ. Two Greens were elected to the Senate. Since then the Greens have surged.

In NSW they doubled their vote in this year's local council elections, and support has risen to 20 per cent in some federal seats. In Victoria, the Greens won more than 20 per cent of voters in three inner-Melbourne seats at the 2002 state elections. And in Queensland their support more than doubled, to 6.6 per cent, in this year's election.

For all his early success against Howard, Latham is going to need every vote he can muster. The latest Reuters poll trend, which has correctly picked previous winners by analysing the major opinion polls, shows that Labor's lead over the Government has been halved in recent weeks.

A Sydney Morning Herald poll pointed to key demographics: 15 per cent of 18-24 year-olds, and 12 per cent of 25- to 54-year-olds, intended to vote Greens. A Newspoll in The Australian further showed that the Greens could win up to 6 per cent of the primary vote in key marginal electorates, and up to 7 per cent even in safe Labor seats.

Thus the appeal of Garrett, whose towering height and shining pate has been a beacon of radicalism for three decades in Australia, crossing over easily from the ultra-high energy of Midnight Oil's rock and environmental, aboriginal and anti-nuclear activism, to the respectability of slacks and Akubra hats as president of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Garrett had the curriculum vitae Latham wanted: since 1976, frontman for one of Australia's most successful bands, ACF president, member of the international board of Greenpeace, one of the National Trust's Living Treasures, member of the Order of Australia ... When the Sydney Olympics ended, one of the final images beamed out to the world was Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil wearing "Sorry" suits in the closing concert to protest Howard's refusal to apologise for past wrongs committed against Aborigines.

But the political spotlight is far more glaring than anything Garrett experienced on stage. Flaws and inconsistencies are already being scrutinised: the fact, for example, that Garrett is hardly a working-class man.

Born in the silvertail Sydney suburb of Wahroonga and educated privately, Garrett has a law degree, earned a reputation as a fearsome negotiator through Midnight Oil's corporate entities, and now lives as a millionaire at Mittagong, a rustic enclave of wealth and privilege west of Sydney, a world away from the eastern suburbs he wants to represent.

Garrett will lose the respectability of the ACF. He resigned as president this week, as a former Liberal Attorney-General, the late Sir Garfield Barwick, had done before him.

"We're a non-party-political organisation and it's important that we maintain that stance," said ACR spokeswoman Rebecca Fredericks. "We wish Peter every success for his future and we're grateful to him for his services."

He has no history in Labor - he applied for party membership only this week, after being asked by Latham to stand for Kingsford-Smith - and absolutely no experience of the brutal Darwinism of the Labor machine.

The last foreign star Labor introduced to its galaxy was former Democrat Leader Cheryl Kernot, burnt up and spat out by a party that largely resented her. In an understated assessment of what Garrett is likely to find, Kernot said: "I think he will find some aspects of ALP culture and discipline pretty challenging."

Even before Garrett and Latham arrived at Maroubra to announce his candidacy, the front page of Sydney's Daily Telegraph blared: "Latham's celebrity candidate has not bothered to vote for 10 years." In a country where voting is compulsory and for a man personally picked by a Labor leader, this was pretty damaging stuff: Garrett could produce only a stumbling defence.

Howard, despite admitting he quite liked the Oils' hit Beds are burning, launched straight at Garrett's throat: "All I can say is that if somebody hasn't voted on the last three occasions ... they can't be very passionate about the future of this country, can they?"

In Kingsford-Smith electorate, many of the Labor faithful are fuming. The seat covers 90sq km of eastern Sydney, embracing beachside suburbs such as Maroubra and Coogee, Sydney Airport, and the industrial sprawl of Port Botany.

It is solid Labor, producing two state premiers - Bob Heffron in the early 1960s and present incumbent Bob Carr - and a bevy of federal heavyweights, including the retiring Brereton and Lionel Bowen, a former Deputy Prime Minister under Bob Hawke.

As many as eight locals were intending to stand for the seat before Latham rode in, guns blazing, with Garrett at his side. Latham has made it clear he will use federal rules to ensure Garrett is the candidate and, probably within short order, a member of his ministry.

Irate party members gathered at a fiery protest meeting to demand their right to select their own candidate. Said Dominic Sullivan, a former mayor of Randwick and a pre-selection hopeful: "We don't want a wealthy, ageing rock star who comes from the Southern Highlands to be our local member. The message to Peter Garrett is, don't bother to apply."

Added Maroubra branch president Pat Bastic, a Labor stalwart for 70 years: "Look, if you asked Peter Garrett what a loaf of bread costs he couldn't tell you. We want people like our own."

Garrett's candidacy has also incensed powerful federal unions, many of whose members feel threatened by his views. Australian Workers Union federal president and Labor national executive member Bill Ludwig, for example, believes the party leadership has "lost the plot".

More significantly for seats in Tasmania and mainland areas where forestry is a hyper-sensitive issue, Garrett faces the opposition of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. The union's Michael O'Connor said that far from adding value, Garrett was likely to be a liability for Labor, frightening off the people the party was trying to win back from Howard.

"He's a scary character to those sorts of people," O'Connor said. "He doesn't represent economic responsibility, he doesn't represent the values they hold, he doesn't represent safety. He is a scary, bald, bad dancer with radical views."

Political commentators and analysts are divided over the value of Garrett to Latham's campaign. But they are united in the view that Garrett is going to face some serious difficulties, both within the party and with his public persona.

He has already backflipped on Pine Gap, the spy base that remains an integral part of the US war machine. Garrett believes that times have changed, the nuclear threat is over, and that the intelligence gained from Pine Gap is central to the ear against terrorism.

Other potential points of conflict may not be so easy to resolve. While Labor's environment policy has much Garrett can easily support, such as ratification of the Kyoto protocol on climate change, his public position conflicts with the party line on a free trade agreement with the US, forest logging and uranium mining - all touchstone issues for the voters Latham is hoping to capture.

"I'll be really straight about it," Garrett said. "Politics is an imperfect game. We all know that. We see it on our TV stations every night. And yet it is the best game we have for making the country work better."