6 THE NATION THE AUSTRALIAN, MONDAY, JULY 14, 2014theaustralian.com.au

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Political chaos is manna from heaven in a cartoonist’s world gone mad

THERE is a curse that strikes BillLeak frequently in the morning. Asthe cartoonist rises from his slum-ber, before dawn, an idea strikeshim like a thunderbolt — brilliant,inspired and devastating witty.

But it’s an idea that has arrivedtoo late, a good 10 hours after he’sturned in his daily cartoon.

Leak calls it the cartoonist’sversion of d’esprit d’escalier — theFrench term for “staircase wit”,that infuriating moment when theperfect retort comes to you whenyou’re halfway up the stairs.

“I get up every day at five and Ilike to be sitting in front of thecomputer and reading the paperand related material by half pastfive in the morning and seeing howmuch I can learn before I eventhink about doing a cartoon.

“Ideas take a while. You findout the facts first and the ideaforms itself gradually.

“And, if you’re a cartoonist likeme, you’ll find that they formthemselves rather too graduallyand the really good ideas occur to

you the next morning instead ofthe day before.”

Take one of his favourites oflast year, his portrait of KevinRudd reclining by a lake in front ofhis own reflection, which earnedhim a Walkley nomination. “I usedto be a bit of a narcissist but nowI’m perfect,” says the caption,above the heading: “Change wecan believe in”. Looking back now,Leak wishes he’d used a differentheading: “On reflection”.

When Leak’s Rudd cartoonwas featured on ABC’s Insiders,presenter Jon Kudelka, also acartoonist at The Australian, calledthat week in July — when Ruddrolled Julia Gillard — “possibly thegreatest week for politicalcartooning in the history of Aus-tralia”. But Leak reckons thingsare only getting better for cartoon-ists: a grim observation for the restof us. “The really lean and difficulttimes for cartoonists are times

when things are going rather wellfor the country, because you can’tmake happy stories funny easily.”

“Disasters are much easier tomake fun of. If the political situ-ation is in utter chaos and everyday brings new dramas, these aregreat times for a cartoonist. And Ithink things are chaotic beyondbelief at the moment. We’ve got noshortage of nutters around in fed-eral politics now, and nutters arealways good for cartoonists.

“Suddenly this elephantine sortof character appears on the scenein the form of Clive Palmer andyou just think, ‘How has it come tothis, how could this possibly hap-pen? And you wonder what couldpossibly be next.”

Leak recalls the advice of one ofhis early mentors, the prolific car-toonist Patrick Cook, whose for-mula when it came to cartooningwas simple: to take a situation, acharacter or a policy announce-

ment and exaggerate it to the pointof absurdity. But Leak believes thatsuch a rule of thumb is no longerapplicable to the current crop offederal politicians.

“So many of them are alreadycaricatures before I even pick upmy pen and start working on them,and a lot of the things they are say-ing have already reached the pointof absurdity,” he says. “I do thinkthe desire to be popular on thepart of politicians has warped or

caricaturised politics to the pointof unrecognisability.

“There is so much emphasisnow being put on how people inthe so-called Twitterverse aregoing to respond to whatever com-ment you make ... that everythingis guarded now, the utterancesthat our politicians make are verycontrived for that very reason.

“They are aware of the fact thatthey’ve only got to go to the toiletand someone will tweet about it,someone will misinterpret it andapply that misinterpretation totheir retelling of it and by the timethey get to dash off that messagethere’s bugger all a politician cando about it.”

But though the descent of fed-eral politics into absurdity hasbeen a boon for Leak, the cartoon-ist also pines for the days whenideas would be given time to circu-late, settle and mature.

“In the 30 years that I havebeen actively engaged in doingpolitical cartoons, I have seensuch gradual deterioration in thequality of debate and the generalstandard of behaviour of our par-liamentarians and the standard ofdebate and the standard of thepeople that actually make it intothe parliament,” he says. “It’s aworld gone mad.”

NATASHA ROBINSON

ANNIVERSARYSPECIAL

As The Australian celebratesits 50th birthday tomorrow,we’ll be counting down the years, continuing today.

INSIDE

Pages 10-11

Royalties must cut poverty: ScullionTHE Abbott government will useits procurement policy to drivehigher levels of indigenous em-ployment and career advance-ment within Aboriginalcorporations as a result of con-cerns over the hijacking of thesewealthy organisations by well-paid, non-indigenous executives.

Indigenous Affairs MinisterNigel Scullion said he was sad-dened by the failure of the miningboom’s riches to improve indig-enous welfare and was develop-ing new policy to ensure thatindigenous corporations im-proved their employment out-comes.

“The royalty process acrossthe country just leaves me with asense of sadness, the amount ofmoney that is being paid out inroyalties and the poverty of thepeople in receipt of those royal-ties,” he said.

Senator Scullion asked for thedocuments relied on by The Aus-tralian for a detailed report show-ing how the chief executive of awealthy corporation had author-ised substantial payments to asmall clique of indigenoussupporters, thereby bolstering hisposition. One director’s creditorsand family members received al-most $500,000.

The federal regulator forindigenous corporations, ORIC,said no breach of the law hadtaken place. Senator Scullion saidit was possible that the law mayneed to be strengthened.

He was concerned by thenumber of well-remunerated ex-ecutives working for indigenousorganisations who came to lobbyhim and wanted to use the federalgovernment’s purchasing powerto make these organisations moreAboriginal.

“I have people come and lobbyme …. (and) I have to say they areall European people, they are allnon-indigenous people, who areon a pretty good wicket battingfor one side or the other,” he said.

Senator Scullion said it was“completely outrageous” forexecutives of these corporationsto use indigenous royalty incometo pay for elite courses at US and

European business schools, aswas cited in The Australian’s re-cent report.

Instead of entrenching them-selves in their roles, executivesshould have as part of their keyperformance indicators the re-quirement to find an indigenoussuccessor. “You should, morally,be working yourself out of a job,”Senator Scullion said.

He planned to make some an-nouncements soon about federalprocurement policy so that it en-couraged employment growthand career advancement amongAboriginal Australians.

He cited the case of housingconstruction in indigenous com-munities, which would includebenchmarks for indigenousemployment in the same way itspecified that the house shouldhave a roof.

“It is not an aspiration anymore. It is a strict requirementand it will be required under con-tract,’’ he said.

He said there were many “bril-liant” Aboriginal people whosecareers should be advanced bythe growing income earned as aresult of the resources boom.

Senator Scullion flagged morestreamlined governance arrange-ments under the Native Title Actfor when determinations werelimited to hunting rights, for ex-ample. Under the act, groupsneed to set up fully-fledged cor-porations when seeking a deter-mination. Indigenous groupswere telling him they had to set upthese costly arrangements eventhough “we don’t make anythingfrom camping on land”.

Senator Scullion also wantedto compel Aboriginal corpora-tions to incorporate under federallaw by making this a condition ofreceiving federal funding.

PAUL CLEARY

How The Australian reportedthe story on May 7

Global youth leaders here to talk up jobs

WHEN the global young leadersof tomorrow sat down at the Y20summit in Sydney there was oneissue that united them — actionon youth unemployment.

After consultation with theyouth in their own countries andthree months of online debate,the 120 delegates, representingthe G20 nations’ 18-30 year olds,began workshops yesterday todraft a communique to influence

the G20 summit — in Brisbane inNovember — to act on threekey issues: youth unemployment,youth entrepreneurship andlabour mobility. “We want G20leaders to recognise that youthemployment is a serious issue ...we want them to focus on thatwhen they develop their owncountry plans,” one of Australia’sfive delegates Tim Cameron, 27,told The Australian.

“In terms of Australia youth,we really want the G20 to thinkabout really effective evidence-based ways to combat a problem.”

Mr Cameron, an economist forthe Grattan Institute, said Austra-lia’s figure of 280,000 peopleunder-25 out of work was three

times that for unemployed peopleover 25. “You’d always expect tosee that was higher ... but we thinkthe multiple of three is probablynot the right number — and it setsit up for this generation to be shut-out a little bit more than theyshould be,” he said.

“The Y20 has the ability topush things up to the G20 to getyouth voices heard in a time whenthe youth are increasingly feelinglike they’re not being listened to.”

Mr Cameron said the groupwas “pragmatic about the battle”they faced in influencing the G20.

“The G20 is an economicforum so we framed it as what arethe main economic issues and weput the focus on that,” he said.

“Of course there are a wholebunch of social issues that areworrying young people.

“But it was pretty consistent inmy mind … there was nothing elsethat they cared about more thanemployment.”

At the end of the process, thedelegates will issue a com-munique to Joe Hockey address-ing the key issues. This willcoincide with the start of the B20business leaders forum beginningin Sydney on Wednesday.

“In Australia, we need to havea better culture of evaluation of allour active labour market pro-grams and figuring out whatworks and promoting that ratherthan basing policies on politics

rather than evidence,” Mr Camer-on said. “That’s something we’regoing to push out post summit.”

For Mexican delegate SihiniTrinidad Sanchez, 23, — whosename means “hope” — addres-sing youth unemployment andeducation were crucial.

“This is where joint projectsare born and changes are made,and this is what we can do asyoung representatives; think out-side the box and act as liaisons,”she told The Australian.

“It’s important to … take theproposals talked about here andalso in national consultation tolocal legislators and tell them thisis what youth want and how canwe engage with you.”

They want the G20 to set evidence-based solutions over politics

SIMON KING

ATTILA SZILVASI

Y20 delegates Tim Cameron, from Australia, and Sihini Trinidad Sanchez, from Mexico, in Sydney yesterday. ‘This is where joint projects are born’

Adapting ‘green’ steelmaking to other industries

THE inventor of “green” steel-making, which uses discardedtyres as a raw material in mini-mills, aims to transform otherindustries through a $2.2 millionresearch grant from the federalgovernment.

Veena Sahajwalla’s centre atthe University of NSW is amongseven groups to be funded underthe Australian Research Councilindustrial transformation re-search hubs scheme.

“The opportunity to partnerwith other industry sectors hasbeen tremendous,” she said.

The industry partners in thegreen manufacturing hub —Brickworks Building Products,Arrium Mining Consumables,Tersum Energy and JaylonIndustries — will put up anadditional $1.6 million.

Professor Sahajwalla, an en-gineer, won the manufacturingand hi-tech design category (nowmanufacturing, construction andinfrastructure) and the overallprize in The Australian Innova-tion Challenge in 2012 for green

steelmaking, or polymer injectiontechnology. Her team took out atotal of $30,000 in prizemoney.

Green steelmaking, developedwith industry partner Arrium,uses rubber from old tyres topartially replace coke as thesource of carbon needed inelectric arc furnace steelmaking.It boosts efficiency and diverts oldtyres from landfill.

The process is a sophisticatedform of recycling, whichProfessor Sahajwalla labels the“reform” of waste.

Arrium is using the method inits plants in Sydney and Laverton,near Melbourne, and has licensedit to a South Korean steelmaker.

Professor Sahajwalla has beenworking to extend the conceptsunderlying green steelmaking tothe reform of combined glass andplastic waste from old cars in agreener method to make iron-

steel alloys called ferrosiliconalloys.

These alloys are usually madeusing silica and coke in anexpensive and greenhouse emis-sions-intensive method.

The work would tackle themounting global environmental

problem of cars at the end of theirlives.

The technology tapping glassand plastic in old cars differs fromgreen steelmaking but it adoptsthe philosophy underpinning theearlier work.

Now Professor Sahajwalla

wants to see the “reform”approach taken up by otherindustries, such as buildingmaterials.

Some construction materialsalready incorporate waste butwaste used in Professor Sahajwal-la’s scheme would probably bemore drastically altered in theproduction steps.

She said the prestige andpublicity from winning theChallenge had helped buildmomentum in her work.

“The Innovation Challengeaward triggered a lot of theseother opportunities,” ProfessorSahajwalla said.

“It was because it was discus-sed in the media that we had otherindustries contact us to talk aboutwhat this concept means forthem.”

The awards — which have atotal of $65,000 in prize money —have five professional categories,ranging from minerals and en-ergy to ICT, and a new Young In-novators section for studentsunder the age of 21.

A Backyard Innovationcategory is open to the public.

Entries close on August 11.

CHERYL JONES

NIKKI SHORT

Veena Sahajwalla in her lab at the University of NSW

ENTRY DETAILStheaustralian.com.au/innovationchallenge

The works of Leak. ‘So many of them are already caricatures before I even pick up my pen and start working on them’

A SEARCH is underway on Vic-toria’s highest mountain for twosnowboarders who have not beenseen since Thursday.

The two men failed to returnfrom their trip to the Eskdale Spurarea of Mount Bogong in thestate’s northeast.

Their abandoned campsite atMitchell hut was found by walk-ers at about 6am yesterday andpolice fear they have not been atthe site since the last snow fallearly on Saturday. Their tent wasempty except for sleeping bagsand some equipment.

The men, both aged in their

early 30s, have not made contactwith their families since Thurs-day, via mobile phone. They alsosent a photograph of their camp.

Police believe the men have anemergency position radio beacon,but have not activated the alarm.

Sergeant Simon Brand saidvolunteers and nine search-and-rescue officers headed up themountain to begin the search thisafternoon.

“Thankfully, we have anumber of experienced volun-teers who have turned out to as-sist with the search,’’ he said.

AAP

Search for snowboarders

50 years of cartoons at theaustralian.com.au

IMMIGRATION officials willtoday attempt the first removalof asylum-seekers out of thetense compounds of ChristmasIsland in more than a week,following a series of self-harms,threatened self-harms and adamaged runway that haltedtransfers to Nauru.

A group of asylum-seekerfamilies was due to fly fromChristmas Island to Nauru lastFriday but the transfer was halt-ed at the last minute when afreight plane cracked the island’sonly tarmac.

The transfers had been occur-ring weekly, and it’s understoodthat some of the asylum-seekerssent to Nauru in recent monthshave reported back to detaineeson Christmas Island that theyshould ask to come too becauseconditions are better there.

Guards told The Australianthat a group of women were stillbeing watched closely in thefamily camp yesterday afterthreatening self-harm over thepast week.

Exaggerated claims about theincidents drew the ire of TonyAbbott last week, who said: “Idon’t believe any Australian, anythinking Australian, would wantus to capitulate to moral black-mail”.

Christmas Island shire presi-dent Gordon Thomson saidyesterday that the situation wasserious but a Fairfax report lastWednesday that 12 mothers hadtried to kill themselves wasincorrect. “They have threaten-ed,” he said.

Yesterday the Abbott govern-ment again revealed nothingabout the whereabouts of a boatof 153 asylum-seekers intercept-ed somewhere in the IndianOcean more than two weeks ago.

The situation spurred a rallyof around 150 refugee advocatesin Melbourne’s Bourke StreetMall.

Activists were calling for Im-migration Minister Scott Morri-son to grant refugee status to theSri Lankan asylum-seekers de-tained at sea.

Greens senator Janet Rice ad-dressed yesterday’s rally beforethe group marched to LiberalParty headquarters in Exhibi-tion Street.

Socialist Alternative andSocialist Alliance membersmade up a large proportion ofthe crowd, the former group sell-ing T-shirts featuring the phras-es “Abbott Hater” and “F..k TonyAbbott” and handing out copiesof “Red Flag”.

The publication was earlierthis month forced to withdrawciting legal concerns over a coverfeaturing an image of the PrimeMinister getting his throat cutwith the words “One cut we’dlike to see”.

The Refugee Action Co-alition, whose Melbourne affili-ate the Refugee ActionCollective organised the rally,also backed down from claims itmade in a press release last weekthat up to “10 mothers in thefamily camp have attempted sui-cide in the last two days onChristmas Island”.

Refugee coalition spokesmanIan Rintoul told The Australianlast week he “probably shouldn’thave said attempted suicide”.

Asylumairliftready to resumePAIGE TAYLORRACHEL BAXENDALE