Peter Robert Gray (10 May 1980 – 30 April 2011) was an Australian environmental activist, notable for two landmark court cases, and for having thrown his shoes in public at former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard in protest over Australia's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He was described in an obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald as "a pleasure-loving intellectual" driven by "an instinctive anti-authoritarianism bordering on the larrikin". Biography Gray was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Classics, at the University of Newcastle; and then worked as an archivist in the university library. He was simultaneously a member of the Rising Tide "climate change action group", campaigning in particular against logging and coal mining. In 2006, he took the Government of New South Wales to the Land and Environment Court over its environmental assessment of the Anvil Hill Coal Mine. The Court found in his favour, ruling that the government had failed to properly assess the greenhouse gas pollution that would be caused by the mining and subsequent use of the coal. It was described by Greenpeace as a "landmark case [...] that forced tougher scrutiny of coal mine emissions in Australia". In 2009, he initiated what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation described as "the first ever legal action aimed at curbing greenhouse gas pollution from a coal-fired power station", by taking Bayswater Power Station owners Macquarie Generation to the Land and Environment Court. He asked the court to find that the power station had been "wilfully or negligently disposing of waste [...] by emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a manner that has harmed or is likely to harm the environment in contravention of section 115(1) of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997", and sought an injunction against the station. The case, Gray and Anor v Macquarie Generation, was ongoing at the time of his death. He was also "the original instigator of what is now an annual flotilla in Newcastle harbour, disrupting the movement of ships for a day at the world’s largest coal export port", and was arrested several times. Q&A shoe-throwing incident In October 2010, Gray was in the audience of a Q&A talk show episode in which members of the public were invited to ask questions to former Prime Minister John Howard. Gray asked: "The recent releases of American military