Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

Thank goodness for Australia's political cartoonists, I say. This week on Insiders we saw the host of Talking Pictures, Mike Bowers, with his guest cartoonist, David Pope, summarising the week's cartoons. Political cartoonists can often depict in their art what is much more difficult to say in words. What Australians saw is that the Prime Minister has become a laughing stock. He is no longer believable on anything, particularly not on the vaccine rollout and quarantine—the two jobs he had during this pandemic.

What better than for Australia's cartoonists to use the Olympics as a way of portraying our bumbling, backflipping, twisting-himself-into-knots PM? Fiona Katauskas had the PM backflipping 'with a bit too much spin' on now suddenly supporting lockdowns. David Rowe, in his cartoon, had the PM on the mat, twisting and contorting on all things COVID with a 'No jab, no pay' tatt on his arm. Rowe predicts this is a sure sign that, after ridiculing Labor's plan to pay people for getting a jab, the PM will backflip on this issue sooner or later and agree with Labor.

Jon Kudelka had his marvellous placebo cartoon based on the PM's road map. Of course, we all know that a placebo is a trick or false medication given to patients who think they're getting something but are not, very much like the PM's plan.

Lastly, there was Peter Broelman, who drew the PM and the Treasurer in a race, except they're doing the Australian crawl because apparently it's not a race. Despite his syndicated op-ed in papers last week, the PM evoked the Olympic spirit, which surely is about competing against the world's best and, indeed, trying to win.