In what he thought was something of a coup d’etât before the forthcoming Federal election, Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader, Mark Latham has wooed ex-Midnight Oil singer, legendary conservation campaigner and once President of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Peter Garrett into the Labor Party fold.

Garrett has been selected to run for the safe Labor seat of Kingsford-Smith in Sydney in the next election.

Now that the ink has dried on his fast-tracked membership nomination form, committed environmentalists are dumbfounded, Coalition hawks are circulating above sensing a split and Latham still thinks he has picked a winner.

But there are many reasons to suggest that he hasn’t and all the ALP leader has done is famously clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Garrett has been courted and recruited in order to entice Labor votes from amongst the liberal conscious café-latté drinkers of Sydney who previously voted for Howard. It is also a gambit to woo the more environmentally conscious left-leaning from drifting towards the increasingly popular Greens. Labor needs these votes (particularly their second preferences) to win the few thousand votes that will swing this election.

The policies of the ALP do not dovetail with a radical green agenda. Already, for instance, Garrett has 'realigned' his views on the clear-felling of old growth forests in the Styx Valley, Tasmania. He is adamant that the ALP policy of supporting the persistence of this practice should continue. There people’s jobs (and votes) at stake, after all. Just two months after publishing a strong anti-felling article in a magazine he is redefining his rhetoric to support ALP policy, Garrett must now take a position that compromises his values as he wishes to be a self-proclaimed ‘team-player’.

In so doing, Garrett’s hard-earned credibility as the once outspoken and uncompromising President of the ACF has been undermined. Garrett has declared that he is "ready to come to the mainstream". This comment alone must have been enough to depress committed activists. And not only has he ‘sold-out’ in the eyes of conservationists, but he has become the laughing stock of the developmentalist and rural right. They must think they were right all along; Australia’s future lies does lie in clear-felling virgin rainforest – because even Peter Garrett has signed up for it.

And how far has Labor compromised its policy position to lure Garrett ? Not one bit. Despite Garrett being a big player, Mark Latham has been at pains to demonstrate that Garrett has joined the ALP, not the other way around. Labor Members in Canberra and Hobart can rest easy: the votes of loggers, hauliers and shippers can still be delivered.

Despite the ALP seeing Garrett as a boon, some savvy political manoeuvring by Howard and Downer will soon begin to expose some weaknesses and splits between the ALP (proper) and the ALP (with Garrett). With a trenchant conservationist and socially progressive past, Garrett is a liability in the mainstream, particularly vulnerable to having his past views quoted back to him in interview (which the media are always so keen to do).

He has already had to fend off accusations of being anti-corporate and anti-American. Whether he is or not is irrelevant - for everyone's views are more complex than simply being 'for' or 'against' anything - in the time compressed news room and four second comment from Garrett's past can do wonders for those seeking to exploit policy splits.

He has even upset the local ALP membership - "branch members do not want someone, a wealthy, ageing, former rock star who doesn't live in this local area who has no local connections being foisted on them as the new local member".

So, after having what looked like a fairly dominating lead in the polls, the ALP had taken a bit of a bashing from a Government embroiled in covering-up torture in Iraq, facing charges of incompetence in the handling of benefits payments. While this episode was, on the whole, handled robustly and up-front by ALP strategists, it was perhaps ill-conceived in the first place.

Garrett has allowed himself to be captured by the ALP for one simple reason: his ambition to take Route 1 to the top.

Route 1 involves firstly standing for the House of Representatives – that is where the real action (but surprisingly the least work) is. It is also where most Government Ministers sit. And this you can only do with a major party backing. (A little like the House of Commons, with very few independent MPs). A spot in the Senate (elected from party lists from each of the States and Territories) is easier for minorities and independents to achieve but consigns aspiring politicians to a life of committees and hard work. But as a minority, no chance Minister's job.

Federal Senator and veteran environmental grass roots campaigner, of Fraser Island and Lake Pedder vintage, Bob Brown, is one of two Green Party Senators in Canberra. Not a large contingent – not even a significant minority – but certainly one of the most vocal. As 'leader' of the Green Parliamentary Party, Senator Brown is one of the most commonly quoted Senators (outside and inside government) - earning media comment far and above what the Green Party's number of Senators should dictate.

Bob Brown is miles away from ‘power’. He will never be a government Minister nor have has hands on the levers of policy. But Brown is an idealist and has seen the benefits of retaining his ‘outsider’ status in Canberra. Whilst he has ambitions – ambitions to grow the Green Party popular base and ambition to spread the environmentalist's mantra, his values and beliefs have held fast to the green movement. One day there may be Green Party government. But Bob Brown knows that it won’t be in his lifetime.

Peter Garrett is in more of a hurry. He feels he has not got time to wait to play the long game. In this sense he is the greater pragmatist – diluting his (well known and ecologically deep) values - for an earlier shot at power. If Labor win power (and they just might) he could well be in a Junior Minister’s position within the first couple of years as part of his ‘payback’ for his celebrity name.

But environmentalists should be warned. Australia certainly will not turn green once Garrett is a Minister. Most comparative studies of polities show that where the green movement has achieved ‘insider’ status (Norway and Germany, for example) their political compromise has been many times the magnitude of the progressive leftist parties that have brought them inside the tent. This has seen the environmental movement become blunted, loosing its edge and struggling to define themselves against the broader left movement.

This is a natural result of 'mainstream' politics - the art of the compromise and horse-trading on entering party politics. But the green movement's strengths most often derive from its 'outsider' status, unconstrained by having to adopt a whole package of policies to maintain unity for government. In the UK, USA and still in Australia, the conservation movement is clinging to its radical heritage, despite Bob Brown being in the Senate and Greenpeace acting as green-wash consultants for oil companies. Peter Garrett's 'defection' will be a loss.