Let’s, for argument’s sake, get a posse together and go back to 2004. We’ll track down Mark Latham and knock him to the ground as he walks up Garret’s front path. Someone can sit on him for a bit while we send someone else off to have a quick chat to Bob Brown.

Whoever we send can point out to St Bob that Garrett has a huge public profile thanks to being the lead singer of one of Australia’s greatest ever bands, rock solid credibility (remember we’re back in 2004) a tireless work ethic and a private income that renders him immune to manipulation. We’ll remind him that a Greens MP/Senator doesn’t actually need to know anything or be able to do anything; they just need to be passionate, dedicated and able to attract lots of attention. It helps if they have enough brains to comprehend the complexities of their cause (Garrett’s turn as head of the ACF showed brains and gravitas both), and enough reason to know a good deal when they see one.

Bob has his failings, but he’s not stupid, and he’ll recognise almost immediately that there is no-one else in the country who could do as much for the Greens as Garrett could.

If he wavers a bit, because after all, he is still human and doesn’t want to share the limelight or his thoroughly peed-on patch on the moral high ground, tell him that all the environmental causes are going to go OFF in the next 10 years and there will be plenty of high moral ground and talking heads time to go around. There’s a good chance he’ll believe you too, because although Al Gore is still inconveniently caught up in US politics, the Australian Democrats are crumbling quicker than 60 year old insulation batts and St Bob knows that Aussies like to keep someone with a conscience in parliament, it makes them feel slightly better about the insane halfwits they voted in to run the place.

So St Bob will set off to see Garret (stepping politely around the bound and gagged Mark Latham on his way) and they’ll reach a pretty quick agreement to find a likely seat, or top spot on the Senate ticket. We’ll smack Latham around a bit, tell him to stop letting his ego run off with his voice box, leaving his brain behind to flop and gasp like a landed fish; then head off home to 2010.

Look, it’s a miracle. There’s Peter Garret on the TV, a passionate defender of the environment, a thorn in the side of every venal, spin-doctored-up-the-wazoo, blowing-lobby-group-reps-in-a-hallway-at-parliament-house, bending-over-for-the-coal-industry, sobbing-into-our-cassocks machine politician. Garrett’s very presence has increased the Greens vote, and there are now enough of them in the Senate to force something resembling action on Climate Change, water, internet censorship and a dozen other things.

He’s feared by the right and adored by the left; to everyone in the middle he’s the conscience they know they should have and the morals they know their politicians don’t have. Huzzah for Garrett…

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