Peter Garrett
Australian musician, activist, and former politician
Peter Robert Garrett (born 16 April 1953) is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and former politician.
In 1973, Garrett became the lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil. As a performer he is known for his signature bald head, his eccentric dance style, and a "mesmerising onstage presence". He 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.
After Labor's victory in the 2007 election, Garrett was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Following the 2010 election, he was made Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. In the aftermath of the 2013 leadership spill, Garrett resigned from the Ministry and announced he would retire from politics at the 2013 election.
In 2003, Garrett was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, "for service to the community as a prominent advocate for environmental conservation and protection, and to the music industry." In 2009, the French Government appointed Garrett an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2010, the World Wide Fund for Nature presented him with their Leaders for a Living Planet Award.
Early life
Born on 16 April 1953, in Wahroonga, Sydney, Garrett was the eldest of three siblings.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Peter Garrett” is australian musician, activist, and former politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Peter, Garrett and Australian, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “australian musician, activist, and former politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q528907. VIAF identifies the subject as 8153148997615259870004. The Library of Congress control number is nb2008024886. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 1973, 2004 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peter Garrett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.