The Australian publicly defended contentious cartoonist Bill Leak after he yesterday published a cartoon that many have deemed “racist”, “garbage” and more, regarding issues around Indigenous youth in Northern Territory.
The cartoon showed a police officer returning a young Aboriginal boy to his father, telling him to teach him about personal responsibility, with the father replying, “Yeah righto, what’s his name then?”
Naturally, Twitter went into an absolute fit, slamming the cartoon as completely unacceptable, especially given yesterday was National Aboriginal Children’s Day. The NSW Aboriginal Land Council has also lodged a formal complaint with the Australian Press Council, demanding an apology.
But a new cartoon this morning was published by Leak. Here it is:
The Australian defended Leak, with the News Corp paper’s editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker saying Leak “forces people to examine the core issues in a way that reporting and analysis can fail to do”, adding it was “proud of its long-standing and detailed contribution” to the discussion around Indigenous affairs.
