Old rockers never die — in Australia they take to running the country.

Less than a week after electing a new Labor Prime Minister, the country’s cultural and social revolution gathered pace when two children of the Sixties were appointed to key jobs.

Peter Garrett, the former sweaty, edgy and menacing frontman of the Sydney-based band Midnight Oil, scourge of corporate America, became Environment Minister.

And the right-wing Liberal Party, shattered after its electoral catastrophe of last weekend, has turned to the raffish, thrice-married Brendan Nelson. The 49-year-old, who for years wore a diamond ear stud, owns several Fender guitars and is known for belting out hits by the Animals.

The choice of Mr Garrett, in particular, was brave. At 6ft 4in (1.93m) and aged 54, he always had a rock star’s body with a politician inside. He spent the 1980s screaming from stages against the US military, supporting the rights of Aborigines and railing against big business. Yesterday the politician emerged fully when the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, appointed him — not without risk — to the Environment portfolio. Mr Garrett, a lawyer who never practised, stumbled in the election campaign. He joked off-air to a radio announcer that what his party said during the campaign and would do in Government were two different things.

More than any other, Mr Garrett’s appointment underscores the enormous change that is sweeping the Australian Parliament since John Howard, Prime Minister for nearly 12 years and the world’s longest-serving conservative leader, was ignominiously dumped by voters and even evicted from the Sydney suburban parliamentary seat he had held for 33 years.

The consensus within the Liberal Party is that Mr Howard stayed too long and should have stood aside last year for his youthful deputy and Treasurer, Peter Costello, the former barrister long seen as the heir apparent.

But Mr Costello, seemingly enraged by the scale of Saturday’s loss, his thwarted ambition and with Mr Howard, has refused to seek the leadership of the Opposition. He now says that he sees his future out of Parliament and pointedly failed to turn up at Mr Howard’s farewell lunch for his outgoing ministers on Wednesday.

So when the conservatives met in Canberra yesterday to select a replacement for Mr Howard, they could hardly have chosen a man more his opposite. They rejected by only three votes the man thought most likely to win: Malcolm Turnbull, the former Goldman Sachs banker who is Australia’s richest parliamentarian.

Mr Turnbull, 53, who married into the Hughes legal and literary dynasty and represents the blue riband Sydney seat of Wentworth, first came to national attention when he represented the former MI5 agent Peter Wright to overturn the British Government's ban on Wright’s memoirs, Spy Catcher, in the mid-1980s.

Despite Mr Turnbull’s impeccable credentials to lead the Australian conservatives, the party voted for Dr Nelson, a radical choice that broke with the past. Dr Nelson is a medical doctor with a track record of socially liberal thinking. He rides large motorcycles and has a raffish aura.

Mr Garrett was keeping, mostly, quiet about his plans at the Environment Ministry, but his 1990 song Blue Sky Mine, which protested against asbestos mining giants, might provide a clue: It said: “The candy store paupers lie to the shareholders / They’re crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers / The balance sheet is breaking up the sky.”

What was increasingly clear was that Australia may now be ready to do what Mr Howard never would — address global warming and sign the Kyoto agreement on global emissions.

In some of his first words since taking over from Mr Howard, Dr Nelson underlined the cultural shift, saying: “Whatever some critics of the Kyoto Protocol might think, it’s symbolically important to Australians and I think the most important thing for us as the alternative Government is to see that Mr Rudd gets it right.”

The rock generation has found a new mission. And so, yesterday, did Australia.

Protest songs

“Got your last meal, filled up with pesticide Hamburger chain third world infanticide Got robot car your jobs will disappear It's the politics of a brand new year Manhattanization is coming, open your eyes if you dare Carry us on to the crossroads, come to your senses and care Progress

“Here comes the tired statesman Heavy lidded, bearded, nowhere left to land He makes the jigsaw fit With a hammer in his hand Drop in the Ocean

“Now market movements call the shots Business deals in parking lots Waiting for the meat of tomorrow US Forces

“Flat chat, pine gap, in every home a Big Mac And no one goes outback, that's that Power and the Passion

“Coastline hosed down washed away Economics now there's nothing left Tomorrow's child takes concrete footsteps And they’ll drink champagne or be damned Shakers And Movers

“Four wheels scare the cockatoos From Kintore east to Yuendemu The western desert lives and breathes In forty five degrees Beds are Burning

Source: www.lyricsondemand.com

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