With Felicity Packard and Greg Haddrick, Peter Gawler wrote for the television drama Underbelly (2008) based on the true crime book Leadbelly: Inside Australia's Underworld Wars (2004) by John Silvester and Andrew Rule. In 2010, Gawler was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards in the Television Script category for A Model Daughter: The Killing of Caroline Byrne. Gawler began working for Crawfords in 1976.