Who is Midnight Oil

In June 2004, then Labor leader Mark Latham announced that Garrett would become an Australian Labor Party candidate for the House of Representatives at the 2004 federal election, in the safe New South Wales seat of Kingsford Smith which was being vacated by the former Cabinet minister Laurie Brereton. There was some initial criticism from Labor members in the electorate, as this overrode the local branch's wishes. He won an easy victory on 9 October, increasing the Labor majority there.

In December 2006, Kevin Rudd, the newly-elected Labor Party leader, announced that he planned to appoint Garrett to his front bench. Garrett was subsequently appointed as Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment & Heritage, Arts.

In the 2007 Federal election, Garrett was re-elected to his seat with a 4.56% swing towards him. However, his campaign was fraught with a number of tactical errors, including journalist Steve Price claiming that Garrett had said to him that Labor would simply change all their policies once they got into power. This was disputed by Garrett as a "short jocular conversation".

On 29 November 2007, Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd named Garrett Minister for Environment, Heritage and Arts; however, his responsibilities did not include the climate change role, which was given to Penny Wong.