Transcript

MARK COLVIN: From the moment the word got out that the ALP was to parachute Peter Garrett into the seat of Kingsford Smith, there's been discussion about whether the aspiring politician has sold out on his ideals.

Today the would-be Labor MP revealed one issue on which he's already undergone a change of heart: the American-Australian joint surveillance facility at Pine Gap.

Over the years the former Midnight Oil front man has sung a bit, and campaigned a lot, for the closure of Pine Gap.

Now he says he supports ALP policy, which is to maintain the facility.

Nick Grimm reports.

(Midnight Oil, 'US Forces')

NICK GRIMM: Peter Garrett is no doubt well aware that now he's entered politics his record on issues will come under unprecedented scrutiny.

JAMES VALENTINE: You know what's really spooky though, is not when you listen to that way, but when you listen to it backwards.

NICK GRIMM: And its likely that ABC local radio's James Valentine not the only one now trawling over every word he's spoken, sung, or shouted over the past couple of decades.

JAMES VALENTINE: You know what he's saying then don’t you?

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT FROM 1986: Peace activists have launched a national campaign to close the joint defence facility of Pine Gap. The campaign began at the base this morning – 19 kilometres southwest of Alice Springs.

PETER GARRETT: It is our intention to give 12 months notice of termination of the above agreement on the 19th day of October 1986.

NICK GRIMM: Perhaps the tune might sound much the same, but on issues like pine gap, Peter Garrett is now singing a very different song.

PETER GARRETT: I don’t believe that Pine Gap should be closed. I'm fully prepared to accept the position that Labor has taken. There is no doubt about it, that it is the threat of terrorism and the intelligence that we can gather from terrorism that is now one of the primary and most important things that Australia, in terms of our national security, needs to consider.

NICK GRIMM: But its a change which has left many of Peter Garrett's comrades in the peace movement, broken-hearted and wondering whether their former hero may have done the unimaginable and sold out.

DENNIS DOHERTY: The reality is that Pine Gap conducted and aimed the war against Afghanistan and Iraq, in which many innocent civilians were killed, and all the rock stars and politicians in the world can't make an ugly place a beautiful place.

NICK GRIMM: Dennis Doherty is the co-ordinator of the Australian Anti-bases Coalition.

DENNIS DOHERTY: Personally I'm saddened, but I respect his decision. It doesn't alter the position of a majority of the peace movement that Pine Gap should be closed and that the ALP policy is extremely weak and extremely deleterious to Australia's security.

NICK GRIMM: Do you think he could bring about change to Labor Party policy in this area?

DENNIS DOHERTY: I think the history of the Labor Party is full of people who have joined it to change it and it is still the same as it ever was.

NICK GRIMM: One of the day's great ironies is the fact that the ALP could have helped Peter Garrett enter the nation's Parliament twenty years ago, when he stood for the Senate for the Nuclear Disarmament Party.

PETER GARRETT: Mr Hawke claims to be a champion for nuclear disarmament but the ALP in an astonishing move has given its Senate preferences to pro-nuclear candidates.

NICK GRIMM: Back then however, the ALP didn't want him there. The Prime Minister then, Bob Hawke, denying him Labor preferences in the 1984 Federal election.

PETER GARRETT: An extraordinary extraordinary action, for a political leader who professes to be pro-disarmament.

NICK GRIMM: Today peace activists question how Peter Garrett will be able to reconcile his history as a anti-nuclear campaigner, with his new support for US bases.

PETER GARRETT: I really hope that we sense now that the time is here when we recover our respect, when we recover our respect for creation.

NICK GRIMM: Dan Cass from Greenpeace.

DAN CASS: We would hope that now he's with Labor, he might provide an entree for us to restate our concern about Pine Gap and the fact that this is not a base that serves the interests of Australians.

NICK GRIMM: But Peter Garrett maintains his views have simply changed, indeed, just as the world has done.

PETER GARRETT: I've carried my convictions and my positive feelings about the issues I want to work on through all my working life. Now, I am convinced and in the maturing of time can see that that international situation has changed; it is terrorism now, it is not nuclear disarmament.

MARK COLVIN: Peter Garrett ending Nick Grimm's report.