Bill Leak ‘singled out’ for racial discrimination investigation after cartoon prompts complaints, by Lateline at the ABC.

The Australian: Bill Leak.

Cartoonist Bill Leak says it is “absurd” he has been accused of being racist and that he is being investigated by the Human Rights Commission over a cartoon portraying an Aboriginal father and son.

Leak told the ABC’s Lateline program that the investigation stifled free speech.

“I think 18C is an abomination. Look, I can only assume that a lot of people genuinely believe that freedom of speech means the legal right to hurl abuse. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. ”

“Freedom of speech is what created our civil and free society. It is all about the exchange of ideas, about letting people express their views in the marketplace of ideas.”

Leak says he was “bewildered” when he was accused of being racist.

Who gets to define what “racist” means? Ah, there’s the problem. Funny how only non-PC people get accused, yet the PC people discriminate furiously between people on the basis of their race. It’s Orwellian, but it’s Australia in 2016. Now Leak has to grovel to the inquisitors on the government-funded PC media.

UPDATE: Bill Leak cartoon an appropriate view of what police see in some Aboriginal families: WA’s top officer, Karl O’Callaghan.

Commissioner O’Callaghan said the cartoon by Leak, published by The Australian newspaper in August and criticised by some Indigenous leaders as an “attack” on Aboriginal people, was an appropriate portrayal of some communities.

“From my perspective, Bill Leak’s cartoon is actually an accurate reflection of what our officers see on a day-to-day basis, when they’re dealing particularly with kids from Aboriginal communities or Aboriginal families who are in trouble,” he said. …

“I think the problem is so widespread and so protracted that it’s not easy just to solve it with, you know, regular government services,” he said.

“Where you have families that are unable or unwilling to care for their children properly, there needs to be other care arrangements in place.”

“While people are trying to deal with the families and deal with things like substance abuse and alcohol abuse … those kids are still running amok in the community, creating havoc, damaging things, getting in trouble with the law.