Circus Oz 2018

Spare a thought for the editor of Australia’s annual political cartoon anthology who regularly finds Australian politics imploding right on deadline.

Cover, Best Australian Political Cartoons 2018

This is the 16th edition of Russ Radcliffe’s annual survey of Australian politics, as drawn by the nation’s cartoonists. Russ writes a handy introductory essay on the year that was, and includes a liberal helping of political quotes to accompany the collection of cartoons.

Available in all good bookshops etc, or via the publisher Scribe.

Cartoon, Lord of the Flies in the Liberal Party room Cartoon, Liberal Party mutiny

And one more, drawn after the anthology deadline, to complete a leadership triptych…

Cartoon, Cirque du Scomo

(The Canberra Times, 24, 25 August, 6 November, 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)

Coal-fired country

The Minister for Coal warned students that protesting for climate action would only lead to the dole queue.

Lecturing the next generation of Australian voters to ignore global warming really should be an express ticket to the back of that queue. Instead, it will probably lead to a lucrative minerals industry lobbying job.

Cartoon, Minister for Resources

John Quiggin has written on where we’re at in the long struggle over Adani’s plans for a giant coal mine in Queensland.

(The Canberra Times, 1 December 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)

The trial of David Eastman

My sketch of the Prosecutor’s closing arguments in the retrial of David Eastman. My Canberra Times colleague Alexandra Back wrote the inside story of the trial.

Sketch, the retrial of David Eastman

Eastman was originally tried and convicted of the murder of Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Colin Winchester in 1995. He spent 19 years in prison before a judicial inquiry found he had not received a fair trial and quashed his conviction. Following a lengthy retrial in 2018, Eastman was found not guilty.

Courtroom sketching, like live caricature, are crafts unto themselves, so I was a little apprehensive in approaching this. I tried my best to ignore one of the more interesting visual elements in the room, the attentive jury, to preserve their anonymity, but I still had to remove some detail on advice from our lawyers.

This drawing actually records the very last day of ACT Supreme Courtroom One. Drab and windowless, and virtually unchanged since I was last in there 30 years ago, the courtroom was abandoned early on that last day as the buzzing from an old piece of tech in the room began to give one jury member a headache. The trial reconvened the following week in the new court building next door.

Sketch, David Eastman sitting through the retrial

(The Canberra Times, 22 November 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)