Peter Garrett hints at a return to music; defends recollection of alleged dodgy donation

FORMER Labor minister Peter Garrett has blamed poor memory for changing his story about an alleged bribe.

Garrett

PETER Garrett has blamed a poor memory for changing his story about a possible bribe during his time in politics.

The former government minister and Midnight Oil frontman last weekalleged he had received an envelope “filled with money” at a clubs industry function which he then returned.

However, speaking with the ABC’s Lateline last night, he now claims that another person at the same function subsequently jogged his memory, and that it was actually a cheque within the envelope and it was made out to his electoral office as a donation to his campaign.

“I gave a number of answers to the questions that were put to me and I incorporated my memory of the event, which was a mis-memory. And having done that, I retained that conviction until such time as it was pointed out to me that this wasn’t the case. I’m human. I’m fallible. I made a mistake and as soon as I knew I made sure that the record was corrected.”

When pushed by host Emma Alberici on why his office tuned down that cheque but did choose to accept donations from the Randwick Labor Club, Mr Garrett said, “The expectation is that the club will provide money and donate to both the federal members’ and state members’ campaigns. That happened and I’ve always been upfront about that.”

But when he later became aware of just how much money the Randwick club derived from pokies, he said he declined to take any further donations from them.

In a wideranging interview to coincide with launch of his autobiography Big Blue Sky, Mr Garrett also said some of his fans weren’t happy about his move into politics,

“Some were cranky,” he said.

But he defended the move. “I’ve got a conviction about Australia and it’s one which has seen me get involved in issues, even when I was in Midnight Oil. But [the band had] reached a point where we’d said a lot of things that we wanted to say and it was time to try something new.”

Mr Garrett was environment minister in the first Rudd government, and education minister under Julia Gillard’s prime ministership.

He was involved in the pink batts scandal which saw four people killed while installing home insulation under a botched government program.

But he says another regret about his time in politics was that achievements such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, National Broadband Network and Gonski education reforms — were overlooked because of the continued leadership squabbles.

A large part of the blame of that, he laid at the foot of Mr Rudd whose behaviour when Gillard was in power, “was appalling and it was destructive,” Garrett told Ms Alberici.

“He effectively tore down a leader of the Labor Party, someone I had a great deal of respect for.”

During the writing of his autobiography, Mr Garrett said his thoughts would often turn to music.

“I’d get to 4 o’clock or 5 o’clock, then felt the guitar sort of calling me — and this probably causes the horror to my Oils colleagues to think that I’m finally picking it up — but it’s some 10 or 15 years since I’d felt music at all.

“I thought, ‘Well, I’ll take this sweet moment while it’s there,’ who knows where it will end up?”

Would he record any of the songs? “I might have a go at it. Just to honour them in some ways and to get more of that out of my system as well.”

Originally published as Peter Garrett hints at a return to music; defends recollection of alleged dodgy donation