Cartoon in leading Australian newspaper an attack on Aboriginal people, Indigenous leader says



I have had a lot of contact with Aborigines and think that the cartoon has a lot of truth in it -- not that truth matters to some, of course -- JR

A political cartoon portraying an Aboriginal man with a beer can and not remembering his son's name is an "attack" on Indigenous Australians, a community leader says.

The cartoon by Bill Leak was published by The Australian newspaper on Thursday, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children's Day.

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency chief executive Muriel Bamblett said it depicted Aboriginal people as "not knowing about their children and not having any role in raising their children".

"You feel quite oppressed when these things happen, I think that we everyday have to battle with direct racism and indirect racism," she told 774 ABC Melbourne.

"In the media, I think they have a public responsibility. That's obviously one of the opportunities to get good messaging about Aboriginal people.

"But if you're constantly stereotyping us as second class then it's about profiling us as second-class citizens in our own country."

The Australian's editor-in-chief Paul Whittaker defended the paper's decision to publish the "confronting" cartoon.

He cited comments made by Indigenous leaders this week, including Noel Pearson on Lateline who said: "Blackfellas have got to take charge and take responsibility for their own children. That part of the message really struggles to get traction."

"Too often, too many people skirt around the root causes and tough issues. But not everyone. Bill Leak's confronting and insightful cartoons force people to examine the core issues in a way that sometimes reporting and analysis can fail to do."

SOURCE