The Art Of Drawing Comic Relief From World Of Politics
The Age
Monday March 6, 2006
JEFF Kennett has a pretty good idea why he has been a cartoonists' favourite. "I was a personality," he says.
"There are very few cartoons of Steve Bracks," the former Liberal premier (1992-99) says of the Labor Premier. "Nice guy. Lovely guy. Nothing wrong with him. But what's his character?"And State Opposition Leader Robert Doyle? "Exactly," Mr Kennett says. But it's Sir Henry Bolte, premier for a record 17 years to 1972, who "would take the prize for the most cartoons", say organisers of an exhibition of political cartoons opening this week.Joan Kirner, Labor premier from 1990 to 1992, disagrees with Mr Kennett about Mr Bracks and says he features in "a nice-guy kind of cartoon". "It doesn't have an edge to it. Mine always had an edge. My absolute favourite is the one after he (Kennett) said if I couldn't stand the heat, I should get back in the kitchen - with his mouth wide open and my very neat high-heel shoe . . . in his mouth. Which, of course, was Tandberg. Tandberg got Jeff perfectly in terms of his more arrogant and dominant approach."Ron Tandberg is among Age cartoonists whose work features prominently in the exhibition, Drawn on the Issues - 150 years of State Political Cartoons."We've tried to use some iconic ones," says Legislative Assembly Speaker Judy Maddigan. "So for Kennett there's a number of him with his very big mouth and for poor old Joan there's a number of her in her polka dot dress." The earliest, from the April 3, 1856, edition of Melbourne Punch, depicts a stonemasons' strike that was holding up the construction of Parliament. Ms Maddigan says cartoonists used to give John Cain (premier 1982-90) "a lot of extra wrinkles when things were tough for the Labor government".Tandberg has no illusions about inevitable antagonism with some politicians. "If they praise you, you're obviously bloody sucking up to them," he says. "If they like what you've done, it's a bad sign." Mr Kennett has on his bathroom walls several cartoons, including works by Michael Leunig and John Spooner. He dismisses suggestions that a politician's praise is a bad sign. Ms Kirner, who says she has never worn polka dots, steeled herself to cartoons of herself in such garb. It hurt at first, she says, but "if a politician can't laugh at themselves, then you can't really connect with the community you're representing". The political cartoons exhibition is on from tomorrow to March 24 at Queens Hall, Parliament House.
© 2006 The Age