Peter Garrett's Wasted Career In Federal Politics

In 1984 Peter Garrett stood for the Senate for the Nuclear Disarmament Party. Garrett failed to be elected because Labor preferenced the Liberal Party ahead of the NDP. 20 years later Garrett was parachuted into the safe Labor seat of Kingsford Smith by Mark Latham. In 2007 Kevin Rudd made Garrett Minister for the Environment and Arts. Garrett approved a major expansion of South Australia's Beverley uranium mine in August 2008. Incredibly, Garrett permitted failed logging company Gunns to dump 64,000 tonnes of dioxin-contaminated effluent into Bass Strait every day. Thank God Garrett was not responsible for financing this ecological disaster and the project failed on commercial grounds. Garrett oversaw the extinction of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle but he did reject the Traveston Crossing Dam in 2009. Garrett's animosity to Rudd goes back the the 'Bats Are Burning' fiasco in 2010 when it appears Garrett was made the scapegoat by Rudd for this failed policy. He did try to warn Rudd. This explains Garrett's refusal to serve under Rudd. So what did Garrett achieve working 'on the inside'. Bugger all we think. Traveston Crossing was more about Queenland's inability to manage water and most of the state was submerged not long afterwards. The jury is still out on the Gonski reforms but as I.T. revealed David Gonki is little more than a caffeine salesman anyway. If you are considering changing the system from within think about the wasted 9 years Peter Garrett spent in Federal politics. Garrett gets his anti-uranium and anti-logging song royalties topped-up with a fat government pension but the question remains 'did the Aussie taxpayers get value for money for the hundreds of thousands they paid to Peter Garrett'?