This weekend Sunday Night has Peter Garrett and swimming with sharks.
Peter Garrett – The Power And The Passion
He was a flailing, screaming wild man on stage. Leading legendary Australian rock band Midnight Oil, Peter Garrett was an imposing presence on stage and off. He was outspoken about contentious and provocative issues. He was a fierce agitator. A committed activist. And then he became one of them. A politician. And even more confronting for his legions of fans he became a Minister responsible for prosecuting many of the issues he railed against as a rock star. That begs the question Sunday Night’s Melissa Doyle puts to Garrett in this access-all-areas profile of the big man: ‘Were you a better politician as a musician or as a politician?’ His candid answers to this question and a catalogue of others probing his careers as an unlikely rock star and, in many ways, an even more unlikely politician make this Sunday Night report arguably the most revealing portrait of Peter Garrett ever assembled. As he prepares to publish his memoir, Garrett goes where he’s never gone before. He speaks openly and emotionally about the harrowing death of his mother in a house fire he survived. He heads back to Selina’s, one of Sydney’s rock’n’roll beer barns, that launched an extraordinary parade of music acts that went on to conquer the world. But he’s perhaps at his most candid and incendiary when he looks back at his polarising parliamentary career. He has plenty to say about his former boss Kevin Rudd and it’s not pretty. He talks openly about the low-point of his political service – the so-called Pink Batts scandal. And yes, he addresses that now infamous encounter concerning NSW clubland. That envelope offered to him he first recalled was filled with cash and then in a startling retraction he changed the story. What really happened? This is a stunning warts and all profile of a complex and fascinating Australian.
My Friend The Shark
So, you’re a day out to sea and from your vantage point at the back of the boat you can see close to two dozen sharks. You’re told that somewhere among that toothy throng there are some of the most feared sharks of all – Tigers. Would you get in the water? That was the startling question confronting Sunday Night’s Rahni Sadler as she travelled to some of the world’s shark hot-spots with a woman determined to change the way we think about these intimidating creatures. Young Australian Madison Stewart adores sharks. She’s in her element when she is eye to eye with them, stroking them and giving them affection. It’s what she does. That’s why they call her Shark Girl. Following controversial shark culling programs in WA and calls for nets or new and enlightened technologies to protect swimmers from sharks in some of Australia’s other danger zones, Sunday Nightexplores an alternative view of sharks. They’re just big goldfish says Dive boat captain Jim Abernethy. Tiger Sharks are like ‘stoner teenagers’ and ‘have heaps of personality’, says Madison Stewart. Amazingly, Rahni took the plunge and yes it changed her mind about sharks. It’s a heart-stopping adventure featuring some of the most stunning natural imagery you’ll ever see. But will it change the way you think about sharks?
Sunday at 7pm on Seven.
