Relax, academics. Cartoonists experiencing “the usual mild distress at having lost a pet set of ministers who seem to get uglier and more recognisable with age” is not a thing. Even if the late Bill Leak, for laffs, said it was.
Australia changed its government in May. Cartoonist grief factor: zero.
My colleague Sally Pryor has written a feature on my 10 years drawing cartoons for The Canberra Times. I selected some cartoons to illustrate it and wrote a few accompanying words.
Despite my tardiness updating this site, I am still drawing! I’m looking forward to seeing how many established caricatures we will get to retire at the upcoming Federal election.
(The Canberra Times, 18 December 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Spare a thought for the editor of Australia’s annual political cartoon anthology who regularly finds Australian politics imploding right on deadline.
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.
And one more, drawn after the anthology deadline, to complete a leadership triptych…
(The Canberra Times, 24, 25 August, 6 November, 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Peter Dutton has joined sections of the media in kicking off the new year with a new “racialised moral panic”, doing burnouts in the new modified Home Affairs Department to prevent any clear-eyed analysis of crime in Victoria.
On the theme of making stuff up, we also began the new year learning the government ignored advice from Treasury in order to whip up fear around proposals to trim negative gearing.
What better metaphor to use than the stuff made up by satirist Ben Ward about the US President’s obsession with a Gorilla Channel?
(The Canberra Times, 5, 6 and 10 January 2018 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
This mash-up of revelations about alleged water corruption in the Murray-Darling Basin with the political debate over economic growth and inequality in Australia is a finalist at this year’s Walkley journalism awards.
Congrats to fellow finalists, my Fairfax colleagues Cathy Wilcox and Matt Golding.
(The Canberra Times, 26 July 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Wages growth remains stuck at record lows
(The Canberra Times, 18 May 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
The government blows up it’s old budget lines…
“…but the 2014 Budget mindset to demonise and impoverish the most disadvantaged continues.”
(The Canberra Times, 11 12 and 13 May 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
The “Debt and Deficit Disaster” truck they used to run down the previous government is getting a make-over.
(The Canberra Times, 27 April 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
Having ruled out more effective measures that might tilt the property market in favour of those who want to buy home and away from those who want to speculate on a capital gain, the Treasurer floats the idea of allowing young people to use their superannuation savings for a house deposit.
(The Canberra Times, 13 April 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)
The government is making hard work of getting its childcare package through Parliament, having stuffed it into an Omnishambles Omnibus Bill that contains various “zombie measures” from the 2014 Federal Budget that the government refuses to let die.
Blackmailing the Senate to get onboard, with threats to NDIS funding, seems to have backfired.
(The Canberra Times, 11 and 16 February 2017 | Gallery of most recent cartoons)