Satire: Best Australian Political Cartoons 2007
Reviewed by Tim RobertsReading Best Australian Political Cartoons 2007 provided me with a renewed surge of joy about the demise of the Howard Government. One thing comes through particularly strongly: cartoonists didn’t buy into the Government’s bull nearly as much as the rest of the media did, who studiously ignored the obvious fact that the incumbents had well and truly screwed themselves months ago. In fact, the cartoonists represented here were so much more attuned to the prevailing political zeitgeist than the majority of journalists that it’s tempting to stop reading Australian political commentary altogether, and stick to the drawings.
Of course, one doesn’t read cartoons for their predictive skills – they’re supposed to be funny, and this bunch doesn’t disappoint. Schadenfreude abounds here, with every cartoonist taking swipes at Howard’s mendacity from multiple angles. (Admittedly, he is an easy target, but the humour doesn’t suffer for that). The catalogue of lies that dominated the last months of his government – the Cole Inquiry, David Hicks, Iraq, climate change, and the rest of the sorry parade – gets a good airing.
The ‘hero’ of this book, if that’s the right word, is Peter Costello. Most cartoonists have a split attitude towards him: he’s both the heir who got jibbed by a power-hungry Howard, and the economic incompetent who accidentally found himself in charge of a virtually indestructible economy. Both of these are true, but the two perspectives result in Costello being viewed with a mix of compassion and contempt by cartoonists. He is depicted as Howard’s pet dog (multiple times), a benched footy player (Spooner), a spurned Prince (Cook), Tigger from Winnie the Pooh (Davidson), a collection martyr (Cook), Kate Winslet to Howard’s DiCaprio in Titanic (Smith), a shady character peeping jealously into the windows of Kirribilli house (Pryor) and one of the disciples to Howard’s Jesus (Pope). In all of these, Costello is shown as a cross between an ambitious apprentice and an incompetent pretender – which is exactly what he was.
There are some weak points in this collection, too. Some of the attacks founder on overly obvious metaphors: for instance, Nicholson’s cartoon depicting a Howard vs. McKew boxing match, with Howard declaring, “Ah Maxine, You wouldn’t hit an old man with glasses would you?” Surely, something cleverer could have been included instead. Ditto Davidson’s cartoon of Rudd as Winnie the Pooh and Costello as Tigger.
My favourite cartoon in the collection is Spooner’s delicious homage to Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat. Kevin Rudd is represented as the suave, dapper Cat in the Hat, while John Howard is featured a very scared little fish in a fishbowl, warning the reader about the Cat’s arrival:
But our fish said, “No! No!
Make that cat go away!
Tell that Cat in the Hat
You do not want to play.
He should not be here.
He should not be about.
He should not be here
When your vote is in doubt!”
Another corker: Geoff Pryor’s cartoon of Costello and Howard as husband and wife at the supermarket. A three-year-old Brendan Nelson is having a temper tantrum beside them, clutching a box labelled ‘FA-18 Super Hornet’. Costello to Howard: “…For God’s sake! Let him have it!”
So, what will cartoonists do now that the Howard Government is gone? Even when Rudd settles into the role as Prime Minister, he does not make good cartoon fodder. Consider the Coalition cabinet, and their made-for-cartoonists personas: Alexander Downer (simpering drag queen); Philip Ruddock (exhumed corpse); Tony Abbot (grim reaper) Peter Costello (smirking incompetent); Malcolm Turnbull (rapacious aristocrat), etc. To replace them, we have Rudd as a Tintin figure with shining halo, which just doesn’t have the same evil ring to it. 2007 was indeed a bumper year for cartoonists – I’m just glad that I don’t have to review the 2008 anthology.
Best Australian Political Cartoons 2007
(2007)
edited by Russ Radcliffe
Scribe Publications
ISBN: 9781921215568
192pp AUD$27.95
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