Peter Garrett, Mr Midnight Foil

After the Rudd Labor Party won office in 2007, Peter Garrett was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts.

He was a rock singer with the famous Australian band Midnight Oil, the band identifying strongly with environmental causes. He was President of the Australian Conservation Foundation for many years and was also on the international board of Greenpeace.

When he was elected, he said he would push environmental causes from within the Labor Party but would "abide by ALP Caucus". To many, that meant that he had sold out his principles as far as the environment was concerned. He was called a "turncoat" and betrayer of his former beliefs when he became a 'Team Player' of the Labor Party. He showed his true colours when he told voters not to vote for the Greens but to vote for Labor in the 2006 Victorian State Election and leader Bob Brown was understandably furious. He also gave support to the Gunns company in Tasmania when they wanted to build the Bell Bay Pulp Mill in the beautiful Tamar Valley. And how could an environmentalist put his seal of approval on the expansion of South Australia's Beverley uranium mine in 2008 when the Australian Conservation Foundation were appalled.

Monique Podmore didn't want to get involved in the Rudd government's $2.4 billion roof insulation program, she just wanted to get better. Suffering from agonising burns which will affect her for the rest of her life, she grieves for her boyfriend Matthew Fuller 26, who was electrocuted beside her last October, just days after they took up a job offer to lay reflective foil mats in Brisbane homes.

"I wanted to stay out of it, I'm only 19 and don't know how it all works. But I still don't understand how it all happened, who made the decisions, and who rushed in, it just seems that no one cares and all they thought about was the money".

"I thought he was having a fit or something, I grabbed him and got thrown into the air. I was lying there struggling to breathe with pain I never felt before. There was no safety training, no warning that it could be dangerous, we would not have gone up into those ceilings if we had known".

Peter Garrett is strutting around with 'it's not my problem' attitude that is infuriating. No hint of an apology to the families who lost their sons, no contrition. Today he can't even be bothered to attend a safety meeting being held in Canberra with electrician heads, he's got other, more important things on his agenda.