Creativity Quote by Peter Garrett

There is a sly humility baked into Peter Garrett’s line, but it’s not the cozy, self-deprecating kind. “Relatively” is doing all the work: it’s a hedge that doubles as an accusation. Garrett isn’t bragging about comfort; he’s pointing out how easily comfort arrives when you’re positioned inside a wealthy, stable country. The sentence is short, almost throwaway, which is precisely why it lands. It mirrors the way privilege often operates: quietly, as a default setting you barely have to name.

As a musician who became a public advocate and politician, Garrett’s voice carries a particular Australian tension between egalitarian self-image and the blunt reality of uneven outcomes. Australia sells itself as the land of the “fair go,” yet your baseline odds improve dramatically just by being there, especially if you’re insulated from the country’s harsher edges: Indigenous disadvantage, remote poverty, asylum detention, housing pressures. “Living in Australia” becomes less a geographic fact than a moral location.

The intent feels twofold. On the surface, it’s an admission of personal fortune. Underneath, it’s a nudge toward responsibility: if being “well off” can be as simple as where you’re born or allowed to live, then merit is only part of the story. Garrett’s phrasing avoids guilt theatrics; it’s closer to a checkpoint. You’re meant to hear the invisible comparison in “relatively” and ask: relative to whom, and at what cost?