Pete Gray

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.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation had retained Gray's shoes after he had thrown them, and Gray asked that they be sold at auction, with the money to be donated to the International Committee for the Red Cross and its work in Iraq. Upon Gray's death, Howard endorsed the idea, and Jones announced it would be seen to. The online auction took place on 26 August 2011, "with all proceeds to be directed to the Red Cross's aid efforts in Iraq". The shoes were bought by Volley, the company that had made them, for A$3,650. They were intended to be displayed in the company's online museum of "well-worn Volleys", regardless the Volley Museum webpage was removed in early 2013 having never featured the shoes. It is unknown what happened to the shoes after this time.

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 following month, in November 2010, he married Naomi Hodgson. Diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2009, he died of the cancer five months later, aged 30 years.

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.

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".

Peter Robert Gray (10 May 1980 in Newcastle, New South Wales – 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.