Peter Robert Garrett, is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and politician.
Environmental Activities
Garrett was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation (1989–93, 1998–2004). He joined the international board of Greenpeace in 1993 for a two-year term. He served as adviser and patron to various cultural and community organisations, including Jubilee Debt Relief, and was a founding member of the Surfrider Foundation.
On and off stage, Midnight Oil often made political statements. At the closing ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, the group performed before the Prime Minister, John Howard, and a television audience of hundreds of millions, wearing black overalls 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.
In 2000, 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. He left Midnight Oil in 2002 to concentrate on his environmental and social activism, effectively spelling the end for the group. He has since ruled out any future musical projects, stating that his musical career was always exclusively bound to Midnight Oil.
Following the Asian Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, Garrett and the other members of Midnight Oil reformed for two gigs as part of the fund-raising event WaveAid.
On 7 July 2007, Garrett presented Crowded House at the Australian leg of Live Earth.
On 14 March 2009, Garrett (with Midnight Oil) also performed live at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for Sound Relief to raise money for the Victorian bushfire appeal.
