As apartment developments reshape the inner city, Canberra’s public housing has now fallen to 7.1 per cent of the capital’s total housing stock.
(The Canberra Times, 26 December 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Author Archives: David
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.
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.
(The Canberra Times, 22 November 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Who is Canberra?
My Canberra Times colleague Markus Mannheim crunched the latest census data to test the stereotypes about those who live in the national capital.
Here’s my accompanying illustration for the front page, with initial concept sketches below, based on our city’s old concrete bunker bus shelters.
(The Canberra Times, 11 April 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
The Gaza massacre
There was global outrage at the use of deadly force by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian protesters in Gaza (at least 60 protesters dead, more than 1700 wounded).
The response of Australia’s Foreign Minister was five bloodless sentences, none of which mention who, exactly, suffered the “loss of life and injury” and who did the killing.
If you are a human being, as you probably are, you might think it would be difficult to explain away the massacre of several dozen people… You would, however, be mistaken. Propaganda defending murder is both simple to produce and alarmingly common…
“How to defend a massacre”, Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs
The Foreign Minister is due to appear in the August issue of Vogue.
(The Canberra Times, 18 May 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
War? Huh. What is good for? (Sponsorship dollars!) Er, say that again?
The Australian War Memorial should ditch sponsorship from weapons manufacturers implicated in crimes against humanity.
(The Canberra Times, 22 March 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Good greef!
How did a tiny private foundation manage to jag nearly half a billion dollars in reef funding?
(The Canberra Times, 23 March 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Firewall
“Mr Turnbull may well have picked the wrong community to be dismissive about climate change”. After the Tathra bushfire.
(The Canberra Times, 21 March 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Plastic fantastic
The amount of plastic pollution collecting in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is greater than previously estimated “and is growing exponentially”.
(The Canberra Times, 10 March 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Bride of Frankenstein
It was this time last year that Centrelink’s error-riddled “RoboDebt” automated compliance and debt recovery system was in the news.
For the monster, a bride.
(The Canberra Times, 13 January 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Summer’s hottest reads
The Bureau of Meteorology says 2017 was Australia’s third hottest year on record. Seven of Australia’s 10 warmest years have now occurred since 2005.
(The Canberra Times, 11 January 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)