PETER GARRETT
Daily Telegraph - June 2007

THE Prime Minister coined a phrase this week when he said to vote for Labor was to risk “a Garrett recession”. The notion that one man can have a recession named after him is impressive, although only the tip of a rich linguistic field. I present the first-ever Dictionary of Garrettology:

The Garrett Effect: A common pathology known to overwhelm a voting public who have been exposed to the dangerously high levels of earnestness and sincerity of Peter Garrett. Symptoms include the desire to listen to the Spice Girls while ordering a super-size McDonald's meal at the drive-through from the window of an SUV.

A Garetting: A slow political asphyxiation at the hands of Peter Garrett. See: Bob Brown.

Garrett Syndrome: Much like The China Syndrome, except the nuclear power plants never get built. You are vile for even thinking about it. Nah,nah, nah, I'm not listening. That's it, get out of my office.

The Garrett and the Stick: In which Peter Garrett is offered by Labor to rich baby-boomers to assuage their guilt for all the flights they took to Byron Bay where they have a house built on an Aboriginal burial ground.

Garrett Trading: A proposed exchange between Australia and the EU in which we give them Garrett and receive, in return, his weight in carbon.

The Garrett Complex: A psychological condition in which Peter Garrett's old activist mates despise him for actually trying to achieve things.

The Garrett Diet: A lot like Atkins except all nutrition is derived solely from the dieter's sense of righteousness. Guaranteed to keep you trim, seven feet tall and looking like you should be answering the door at the Addams Family mansion.

The Garrett-Turnbull Paradox: A law of politics that recognises that although Peter Garrett is a hand-wringing hippy who wants to shut down coal mines, he is at least not a powder blue polo shirt-wearing uber-yuppie who says things like interest rate rises are ``over-dramatised''.

Writer's Garrett: The room where I wrote this. Not to be confused with Garrett's Writer, who is a minke whale called Blinkie.

Garretta-Phobia: A fear of Peter Garrett, felt chiefly and most acutely by governments with low opinion poll ratings. Sufferers have been known to consult professional speech writers to come up with catchy aphorisms like ``a Garrett Recession''. This fear may, or may not, be contagious. Experiments are still only a few days old which, as has been previously noted, is a long time in politics.

© Brendan Shanahan 2008