‘Racist’ cartoon strokes debate over abuse of Australian natives

An Australian newspaper cartoon widely slammed as racist has renewed a national debate on the discriminatory treatment of the country’s native people amid a scandal over the abuse of Aboriginal minors in prison cells.

Despite the broad criticism, cartoonist Bill Leak defended on Friday his new caricature in The Australian of a drunk Aboriginal father forgetting his son’s name after the government’s Indigenous affairs minister slammed the “racist stereotypes.”

In defending his cartoon, Leak dismissed his critics as “toddlers who were suffering from chronic truth aversion disorder,” claiming all he was doing was trying to tell the uncomfortable truth about “Indigenous misery” which is rooted in the failure of native families in raising decent children.

The cartoonist, however, failed to justify the widespread abuse of native teenagers at the hands of prison guards, and to explain how the systematic discrimination across the country over the years has attributed to the miserable condition of Aboriginal families.

He made the comments after Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion described the cartoon as “particularly tasteless,” given that it was published on National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day.

“Although Australian cartoonists have a rich tradition of irreverent satire, there is absolutely no place for depicting racist stereotypes,” he said. “I would urge the Australian to be more aware of the impact cartoons like the one published today can have on Indigenous communities.”

This is while some major advertisers in The Australian, including SunCorp Bank and the Adelaide festival, have tried to distance themselves from the cartoon by canceling or reviewing ads in the paper.

SunCorp Bank said it “definitely [does] not support the cartoon,” while Adelaide festival said it “deplores all forms of racism and editorial commentary that vilifies Australia’s First Nations people.”

Additionally, the Australian Press Council announced that it was investigating public complaints about the offensive cartoon image.

Late last month, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) aired video clips showing prison guards beating teenage detainees, teargassing them and keeping them in solitary confinement for hours.

The guards were also seen hooding the youths, strapping them to chairs naked or half-naked, and throwing them into a cell by the neck at the detention facility.

In addition to the cartoonist, The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker, has also stood by the publication of the cartoon. An editorial in the daily on Friday defended Leak’s cartoon and said that family failure was the root cause of much “Indigenous misery.”

This is not the first time Leak has come under fire for his controversial cartoons. He was condemned back in December for a cartoon portraying starving Indians chopping up and eating solar panels, provoking anger at home and abroad.

Aborigines comprise three percent of Australia's population, while they make up 27 percent of the prison population and 94 percent of teen inmates in the Northern Territory.

The communities are considered the most disadvantaged in Australia, suffering higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment, illness and child mortality.

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