Garrett - Big blue sky: a memoir

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this document may contain the images or names of people who have passed away.

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First published in 2015

Copyright Peter Garrett 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin

83 Alexander Street

Crows Nest NSW 2065

Australia

Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

Email:

Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

from the National Library of Australia

www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 76011 041 3

eISBN 978 1 92526 833 1

Internal and cover design by Lisa White

Cover photography: Sophie Howarth

Design of illustration inserts by Bookhouse, Sydney

Index by Puddingburn Publishing Services

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

I dedicate this book to Doris,

the love of my life,

and our three beautiful girls, Emily, May and Grace.

CONTENTS

ITS GONE ALL ghostly quiet and frozen still.

Everything is in silent outline, like the mountains of the moon when it rises close, fat and yellow over Weereewa, the mystery lake up the road.

Other than the background hum of machines on standby, and the tick of the clock bouncing off the walls in my office, theres no sound. The phones have stopped ringingin this giant cubbyhole of politics and power a sure sign that an endpoint has been reached. Double-strength fixed windows and solid doors muffle loud noise but there is none right now.

The vast tiled courtyard below, where the prime ministers press conferences take place, is at last empty. I can still see the faint outlines of body shapes, the spectral residue of human heat from the crowd here earlier: before the doors closed, before the changing of the guard, before the rats and angels went scurrying for the outside world.

Ive never suffered the affliction of loneliness; just lucky I suppose. I like people, but I like the measured beat of my own company as well. Still, there have been times when Ive felt alone.

Sitting in the gutter, sober, listening to the distant whoops and whistles of a New Years Eve party.

Squatting on the edge of a dry salt lake in the Western Desert with no sign of another person.

Standing in front of the microphone late into the night when everyone else has gone, the headphones replaying an orchestra of sounds as I try to find the words and melodies to match.

At those times and others Ive been a castaway on my own island, but they were nothing to what Im feeling now. The previous afternoon Id phoned Doris, my sweetheart of nearly thirty years, to tell her this adventure was finished. She was about to leave for a month to attend to distant family business. Bad timing, but at least wed be seeing more of each other in the months and years ahead.

I take a deep breath, and then another, and slowly look around the room.

A massive wooden desk still groaning with paper and, behind it, racks of books and piles of reports, some small family photos.

Hanging on the walls are my sustenance: photographs and art and memorabilia. Theres a big Freddie Timms painting that I look at every day. For me its got more power than a dozen Monets. Hes sung it into life and even if I dont understand all its meaningsand I dontits ever strong. An elder from the Kimberley, Freddie was renowned for challenging the claims of certain historians who, discounting the oral evidence of local Aboriginal people, denied that some of his family had been killed by white troopers in a massacre barely a hundred years before. The great man surprised me by turning up at the office one day, with a group of community leaders from the east Kimberley, to seek support for education programs for their young. They sat directly under Freddies work but no one mentioned it; the talk was all business. On the way out, though, Freddie paused, glanced over his shoulder and said, Not a bad painter that one. I know I wont remember the scores of meetings, the endless sea of faces, the fine detail of every policy, but I will remember that old mans wry humour.

Like a newsreel in reverse, images are racing through my mind: a small blond-haired boy who is sure he knows the answer, thrusting his hand up again and again and again in grade six at Gordon West Public School; twenty years later balanced on the edge of a stage, looking out at a heaving mass of bodies swaying and singing in unison as Lucky Country rings out across a huge field; on the street, megaphone in hand, calling for us to become a more independent nation and start caring for the fabric of the land; crammed into the boardroom of the Randwick Labor Club, shoulder to shoulder with supporters and family, as the votes come in and Im chosen as a new member of parliament.

My staff are now gone, the younger ones dispatched early, before emotions spilled over. My ever-loyal deputy and my chief of staff are the last to leave, but leave they must: to go to homes in other cities; to catch their breath with loved ones; to gather their thoughts and try to make some sense of what has just happened; to grieve and rage against the injustice, the bloody ordinariness, of the past few days.

I poke my head into the long corridor, all heritage colours and solid furniture. To the left are the public areas of Parliament House and the labyrinth of meeting rooms and backbenchers suites. To the right lie the ministerial wing and the offices of my colleagues. There is no one; no people, no movement, just an eerie silence.

I feel like Im on a giant abandoned raft drifting across a familiar stretch of water. For the last time, I walk the wide corridors, slowing to take in the paintings that hang on the walls. Some of Australias best art is here, morsels that feed your spirit in the crazy times, although I know most people rushing by take little notice.

I head down the stairs and past the cabinet room and the prime ministers suite.

Solemn guards look up and nod. Good afternoon, Ministersorry, er, Mr Garrett.

I walk past the offices of the ministers for Defence, Employment, Environment, Resources and Energy, and up the stairs past Trade, Health, before finally returning to School Education, Early Childhood and Youth.

Its time to finish packing my bags. The leader of the nation has gone, and soon her conqueror will occupy the office below with his minions and their plans. For now I am in the gap between, the calm before another storm, with giant plastic bags full of shredded paper dumped in the corridors the only sign of the revolution just passedother than the parade of talking heads offering postmortems of victory and loss on the television screens in every room. Thankfully, the volume is turned down.

Although only twenty-four hours have passed, already the howling cesspit that is the House of Representatives feels like a lifetime ago. Its darkening outside when I leave the vacant office, stepping over cardboard boxes and abandoned files, flicking the lights off as I go. A pause to reflect and give thanksno regrets.