Dear Foxy,

Yes Tandberg is a step above isn't he.

He has won 12 Walkleys compared to Leak's 8. But most impressively two of those were Gold which is the award for “Best Piece of Journalism, Newspaper, Television or Radio”. He really does sit at the top of the tree for political cartoonists in Australia.

And Leunig is indeed a treasure. I wonder if you have seen any of his sister's work? Pretty dark but powerful.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-27/cartoonist-mary-leunig-talks-politics-family-and-brother-michael/7880200

Both are more social commentators rather than avowedly political ones and Michael's whimsy is a delight. But still there are many of the right elite who will disparage him at every turn.

Dear Shadow Minister,

You call Leunig a racist while you would contend that Leak is not? How does that work in your mind?

(Pickering) "is a disgusting con artist, a philandering dole bludger and an all round nasty human being". They say it takes one to know one, and SR has just proved the saying. Although, I find Pickering amusing and clever, which I cannot say for Steeleredux, who is not the slightest amusing, and Left-wing dumb.

The role of a great cartoonist, surely, is go to the edge, to shock (hopefully in the right direction), and to make connections, inescapable connections, between what looks like a simple story and something much deeper and more significant - and more disturbing. The wonderful Bill Leak put his life on the line doing that and it is us who shrink back and wonder if, 'Gee, maybe, he might have gone too far this time." No, he was OUR consciences, what we might have said or done if we had his courage - what NEEDS to be said.

I had hoped to, sooner or later, when he came back to Adelaide, the centre of Australian political innovation and genuinely progressive spirit, that I would have the honour to shake his hand. But 'sooner or later' sometimes doesn't come. So, comrades, seize the time ! Find your inner courage, your inner Bill Leak, and do what you KNOW should be done !

Thank you, Bill, for showing us what a real man, a real person, can do, and what one should stand for.

Joe Lane

Yes indeed.

I read somewhere that the first step to be a good
person is to deeply feel the burden of the stones
someone else is carrying.

SR,

To try censor criticism of any minority is a blight on free speech and is racist in its own right. At the time of Leak's cartoon there was intense discussion on the problems in aboriginal communities and families in particular. That aboriginal fathers are abandoning and abusing their children in droves is creating a lost generation of damaged children far worse than the stolen generation. Leak's cartoon was not news, but cast light on Australia's dirty secret, that the PC brigade was trying to sweep under the carpet.

However, the poorly drawn and fact free implication that the Nazi death camp built to murder millions of Jews and the state of Israel are equivalent is deliberately racist and as offensive as possible. It is pure unadulterated race hate and was condemned by any person who wasn't an anti semetic racist.

I wonder why the "progressive" community while supposedly trying to protect minorities considers that anti semitism is OK?

Dear Shadow Minster,

Much as I admired Bill Leak's work I can understand
the criticism that he received from that controversial
cartoon. I felt that it was a bit simplistic to
condemn Indigenous people as a whole from a position of
affluence, privilege, and middle-class comfort. That's
what Bill Leak's cartoon did.

Many Indigenous people would have felt that everyone was
having a laugh at their expense. Cartoons should be funny
to us ALL