Malcolm Turnbull Picked A Very Bad Day To Defend Bill Leak
"He's not a racist, he's an Australian."
Notoriously terrible cartoonist Bill Leak is currently locked in a battle with the Australian Human Rights Commission over allegations of racial discrimination in one of his cartoons. Leak’s mates in the conservative media have fired back at the race discrimination commissioner in editorial after editorial, declaring him “unelected and out of control”, for pursuing the case.
Andrew Bolt, One Nation And Other Conservatives Are Trying To Make “Je Suis Bill Leak” A Thing
Now the Prime Minister has weighed in on the issue and thrown his support behind Leak. In an interview with 3AW radio this morning Turnbull was asked whether he thought Leak was “a racist”.
“Of course not. He’s an Australian,” Turnbull replied. Because somehow being an Australian automatically precludes someone from being a racist? Turnbull went on to describe Leak as a “Colourful, passionate Australian of enormous artistic ability.”
“Bill is a very engaging guy. He writes as colourfully and powerfully as he paints,” Turnbull said.
Turnbull on #3AW says Bill Leak is not a racist,IBM ultimately at fault over #censusfail,&says he keeps portrait of dog rusty in his bedroom
— Primrose Riordan (@primroseriordan) October 27, 2016
It turns out Turnbull and Leak have a long and complicated history. Thirty years ago Leak sued Turnbull and accused him of featuring his drawings, without authorisation, in a book about the Spycatcher trials. Turnbull described the action as “an act of absolute opportunism by Leak.” The two later made up and in 1994 Bill Leak’s portrait of Turnbull won the People’s Choice award in the Archibald prize.
Turnbull’s comments today put him at odds with the Indigenous Affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, who declared the cartoon was “racist” back in August. They also couldn’t have come at a more awkward time.
In a cartoon for The Australian, published today, Leak has depicted Gillian Triggs, the President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, and Tim Soutphommasane, the race discrimination commissioner, as goosestepping Nazi “Kommandos”.
last week Bill Leak compared race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane to Kim Jong-Un
today, he's a Nazi, apparently pic.twitter.com/tooej2grlU
— Josh BOOoOoOtler (@JoshButler) October 27, 2016
For some reason the cartoon features Speedy Gonzales and a bunch of vikings (who I think are supposed to be Asterix and Obelix?). It’s probably attempting to make some sort of point about racial stereotyping but I can’t figure it out. (UPDATE: It turns out one of the drawings is of a character from the anime Bleach. Does this mean Bill Leak watches Bleach?)
Comparing the Human Rights Commission to Nazi’s because they’re following up their statutory duty to investigate racial discrimination complaints seems deeply odd. And Malcolm Turnbull decided that today, of all days, was the best one to go out and defend Leak. Good timing.