Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil [View all]

I love Midnight Oil and I love that their lead singer, Peter Garrett has walked the walk of environmental and racial activism. He was a longtime member of the Australian Conservation Foundation before being elected to the House of Representatives in 2004. In 2007, he was appointed to be the Minister for the Environment, Heritage, & the Arts. In 2010, he was named as the Minister of Education. This after overcoming the deaths of both parents (his mother in a house fire) while he was still in school. Although his career in politics was marked by some compromises that pissed off loyalists, he was responsible for ending Japanese whaling ships killing whales off the coast of Australia (starting the fight that ended up in International Court) among other accomplishments.

Midnight Oil songs often reflect environmental and social justice interests...the seemingly powerless versus corporate and military interests. In 1985, Midnight Oil toured remote Aboriginal communities with the Warumpi Band in order to learn more about their lives and to share their music. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, The Oils performed wearing shirts that said "SORRY"--to apologize for the government's previous policy of separating Aboriginal children from their families (for which the Prime Ministers had refused to apologize for).