Bill Leak takes aim at ‘tantrum throwing Tweety Birds’ in robust defence of The Australia cartoon
Under fire cartoonist Bill Leak has defended his controversial cartoon in yesterday’s Australian, and drawn a cartoon portraying himself as the victim of “tantrum throwing” and “sanctimonious Tweety Birds”.
Leak, and his employers, faced widespread criticism of yesterday’s cartoon which appeared to suggest indigenous fathers do not know the names of their own children.
Today’s Bill Leak cartoon in The Australian
Writing in today’s Australian, Leak mounted a defense of his work, branding those who attacked the cartoon as “racist” as suffering from what he called “Chronic Truth Aversion Disorder”.
He took particular aim at The Guardian Australia’s media correspondent, Amanda Meade, for failing to understand the meaning of a cartoon “when it was so glaringly obvious”.
The cartoon showed a policeman bringing back an indigenous child to his father by the scruff of the neck and telling him: “You’ll have to sit down and talk to your son about personal responsibility”.
The father responds: “Yeah righto, what’s his name then?”
Leak insisted the cartoon had been “inspired by Indigenous men and people who, without regard for their personal safety, feel compelled to tell the truth whether it incites the CTAD sufferers to attack them en masse or not”.
The Leak cartoon published in yesterday’s edition of The Australian.
Leak accused people – he singled out those working at media organisations – of simply not understanding the cartoon.
“When little children can’t understand things, they often lash out and throw tantrums,” he wrote. “Workplace and safety considerations prevent adults stamping their feet and hurling themselves on to the playground, so they have to content themselves with spewing invective all over the virtual playground of Twitter.
“They take aim at whoever confounded them, claim to be offended and engage in a cathartic process of name-calling and abuse.”
He continued: “The cartoon I drew for yesterday’s paper was inspired by Indigenous men and people who, without regard for their personal safety, feel compelled to tell the truth whether it incites the CTAD sufferers to attack them en masse or not.
“It’s their prescriptions for improving the lives of Aboriginal Australians that inform my own understanding of the subject.
“Before the howls of outrage and accusations of racism that were directed at me started filtering through into my Twitter-free world yesterday, I received an email from Anthony Dillon — whose father Colin was Australia’s first Aboriginal policeman and whose evidence was pivotal to the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption in Queensland — congratulating me on the cartoon.”
He added the “Chronic Truth Aversion Disorder” epidemic that is “raging through Australia’s social media population” is making it impossible to have any “intelligent debate on serious social issues, such as the rampant violence, abuse and neglect of children in remote indigenous communities”.
“The reactions of people in an advanced stage of the condition to anything that so much as hints at the truth, while utterly irrational, are also so hostile that anyone inclined to speak the truth understandably becomes afraid to do so,” he wrote.
Earlier yesterday, The Australian editor in chief, Paul Whittaker, also defended Leak, saying his cartoons “force people to examine the core issues in a way that sometimes reporting and analysis can fail to do”.
He said people often “skirt around the root causes and tough issues” and heralded The Australian’s “long standing and detailed contribution to our national debate over the crucial issues in Indigenous affairs”.
“The current controversy over juvenile detention in the Northern Territory has lifted these matters to the forefront of national attention again,” he said. “Too often, too many people skirt around the root causes and tough issues. But not everyone.
“This week on Lateline, Noel Pearson said: “Blackfellas have got to take charge and take responsibility for their own children … That part of the message really struggles to get traction.”
“In our pages, Marcia Langton said: “Instead of talking about personal agency, these people talk about self-determination. It drowns out any message about personal agency.”
“Bill Leak’s confronting and insightful cartoons force people to examine the core issues in a way that sometimes reporting and analysis can fail to do.”
But as the broadsheet defended the cartoon – published on National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day – the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council joined the chorus of criticism, attacking it as “ugly, insulting and embarrassing”.
In a statement, NSWALC chair Roy Ah-See, said: “Sadly racism and discrimination is a fact of life for Aboriginal people who have lived on and cared for this country for more than 60,000 years.
“Bill Leak’s cartoon is ugly, insulting and it is embarrassing for Australia’s national newspaper to publish it. It is time the decision-makers at The Australian accept personal responsibility for the hurt they have caused Aboriginal people today.”
The Australian Press Council confirmed it has received at least one complaint, with a number of commentators online describing the cartoon as racist and implying that it might be breach APC’s guidelines on the reporting of race.
This is one of the most sensible articles I have read in over 10 years. Please continue to stand up to the social media bullies who probably represent less than 0.001% of ordinary people. (Yes that is 1 in 100,000). I am sure our indigenous brothers who actually care about the future of their people will agree with the points being made.
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Statistics involving the Aboriginal community are an ugly indictment on Australia. I think these provocative cartoons/reports are great because they stimulate discussion and can correct misunderstandings. If absent un-engaged fathers are not a problem in the Aboriginal community then people can dispute that, if it is we can ask what is being done or challenge why it is being ignored. I think a role of the media is to stimulate debate, not stifle or control it.
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As a great commentator observed about 50 years ago there is no fascism on earth that could compare with the fascism of the Left.
He would be happy (in one sense) that his words are still vindicated. But, on the other hand, like all fair-minded Australians, he’d be appalled how almost totally they have captured the media and those little pockets still free must to be destroyed. Once again the Left proves it will not brook any opposition. Never has, never will.
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Leak chose to draw in a style which invokes some of the worst political cartooning iconography of the 20th century. Der Sturmer would be proud of his use of ‘teltale’ racial tropes around the lips, and hair.
Leak has form for doing this: His stories about Rudd and China abounded with classic ‘the bulletin’ yellow peril era slitty eyes. If he goes after ISIS or problems in the middle east, its noses. When its chinese people he goes for the buck teeth.
Downer, it was not about his race, it was his fishnets. Howard, it wasn’t about his race, it was his eyebrows. Abbot, it wasn’t about his race, it was his budgie smugglers. But if you get Leak onto any racially profiled story, he falls back on the same things “the elders of Zion” used, and then some. Give me a break.
I call bullshit on his “its the truth” angle: he’s not a words man, he is using visuals which betray a solid genetic-racist angle on how to get his story across.
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This must be one of the best op-ed pieces I have had the pleasure to read this year. Political correctness is killing us all and Bill reveals how juvenile and stupid the Tweety Birds really are. The problem is that they are everywhere now, they are uneducated, uninformed, unthinking and lash out like 5 year olds in Woolies when they cannot get mommy to buy the lollies.
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Bill Leak and Paul Whittaker surely don’t really believe this cartoon is ‘intelligent’, do they? Do they!?!
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A message to Bill – don’t let the turkeys get you down! The power of the cartoon is sometimes mightier than the written word because it has to be succinct. It is sad to see how far off the mark the critics are; some deliberately obfuscating in their comments while others just don’t get it.
Consider why kids have repeatedly attacked school teachers in North Queensland, why kids in the Northern Territory have been incarcerated multiple times, why they don’t attend school, why they abuse illicit substances and it all comes down to DEADBEAT PARENTS. Of course it has to be said loudly and clearly. So Bill, please ignore the PC Police, the loony left and raft of sad do-gooders and carry on your work. It really is that important.
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I 61 years old and i know that for at least 61 years both white fella and black fella and everyone in between has been trying to make things better for our idigineous folk … but alas not much has seemed to work .. especially improving the lot of the young. If this cartoon cuts too close to the bone for some then fantastic. Trust me it cannot do any harm .
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A problem won’t be solved if you refuse to recognise it exists. The PC brigade don’t want to acknowledge the problem of the yawning cultural chasm that separates aborigines from other Australians.
The cartoon may be insensitive but it highlights a problem, well, at least one of the symptoms of the problem. And the problem is the policeman, representing white Australia, telling the aborigines that THEY have a problem, THEY have to fix it, and it’s not up to Whitey to help fix it.
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My parents had a wonderful way of dismissing the PC within our society, using the often heard phrase, “You can’t legislate against stupid, my dear.” Until recently I thought that somewhat unfair but as I age I see more clearly how correct that supposition has become. In addition, I find that plain ignorance has its difficulties as well. Bless, intelligent cartooning into the future.
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Leak says he is speaking “truth”. This is supposed to justify his stereotyping of aboriginal people as uncaring parents.
Worse, he does so in the context of young people abused at the hands of state employees whose job it is to provide custody.
Obviously the echo chamber in which Leak lives accepts a very low threshold for its heroics.
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