Peter Bromhead: Cartoons raise issue of where to draw line

Herald cartoonist and columnist Peter Bromhead. Photo / Greg Bowker

Recently, editorial cartoons have been the subject matter of a Human Rights Review Tribunal in Auckland.

When tribunal chairman Roger Haines, QC, read quotes from cartoonist Al Nisbet defending the contents of two controversial cartoons published in 2013, including his statement that he "poked the borax equally", I wonder if the cartoonist understood the implications of this somewhat archaic term with its double meanings which include "to impart false information in an attempt to mislead", as well as the more obvious accepted term "to ridicule"?

It's a very confusing Australasian expression, with no obvious answer as to why one would poke an alkaline salt deposit commonly known as sodium borate at anyone. Particularly as the mineral is comparatively harmless and more commonly used as a household cleaner.

Labour MP Louisa Wall was responsible for taking Fairfax Media and the Marlborough Express to the tribunal over a couple of cartoons drawn by Nisbet.

The work, published in May 2013, was based on the subject of the Government's recently introduced breakfast in schools programme. Nisbet had drawn groups of people who could be crudely described as "bludgers" taking advantage of a free-breakfast scheme, darkly suggesting this left more money available for booze, smokes and pokies.

What particularly raised the MP's ire was that Nisbet had drawn his caricatures based on ethnic stereotypes, suggesting that in the first cartoon, the figures appeared to be Maori or Pacific Islanders.

In a repeat cartoon still worrywarting the same subject, he depicted a group sitting around a table littered with Lotto tickets, alcohol and cigarettes (which sounds more like my home) with a speech balloon stating, "Free school food is great! Eases our poverty and puts something in your kids' bellies." Louisa Wall suggested to the tribunal that what the cartoonist had drawn was "clearly depicting a Maori family". Following publication, the material provoked Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy to comment that she also found the work "appalling" and "offensive". So a trip to the Human Rights Review Tribunal appeared inevitable for Fairfax's management and editors, plus offering further employment for lawyers, a QC and an "expert witness".

What wasn't explained at the tribunal hearing is that none of this unfortunate saga would have happened if it hadn't have been for my wife, sometimes addressed in another regular Herald column as "'the caregiver". Having decided that I needed a holiday from my scribbles, she had generously organised to take me off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks along with a few friends to celebrate this doddery old cartoonist's birthday.

I normally cartoon daily for the Marlborough Express, a trouble-free stint I've carried out for some years, so while I was on holiday the editor, Steve Mason, invited Nisbet to fill in, blissfully unaware that my replacement would lead to controversy during his brief tenure.

I feel sympathetic to all those attending the tribunal. A cartoon is essentially a lightweight emotional statement, hopefully humorous and to the point on any given subject of the day. Such illustrations are often stitched together by cliches and stereotype imagery. That is the nature of the work. As such, cartoons have only a fleeting importance as social comment and enjoy a very short shelf life.

The moment you march such ethereal stuff off to a courtroom to be minutely examined by various experts, particularly 12 months after publication, it is a guarantee that the intangible nature behind such satires, no matter how clever, or ham-fisted, will disappear as swiftly as vapour in the air.

During the hearing, tribunal chairman Haines read further quotes from the cartoonist. "Nisbet said he originally drew the people as all white, but he later saw that the breakfast in schools was going to be rolled out in Northland so he darkened the central characters to 'balance the ledger'." In turn, newspaper historian Ian Grant, the founder of the New Zealand Cartoon Archive, suggested, in his role as an "expert witness", "that cartoonists offered a street-level view of the world. Nisbet's cartoons usually depicted people as ugly and fat," he suggested. Grant said he personally found the cartoons in question offensive, but he would "fight to his dying breath" for papers' right to print them. Censoring such cartoons would strike to the heart of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, he stated.

To the outside world, learning that this is a five-day hearing must seem like an extraordinary length of time to dissect the meaning of a couple of questionable cartoons. However, the essence of the hearing is really about the freedom of the press and the right to publish, even if the works in question have racial implications and may appear on reflection as guileless comment.

The question for everyone involved, as always when publishing controversial opinion, is where do you draw the line? It's the task editors have to face daily and from my long experience in the newspaper industry, they do a pretty good job of balancing what ends up in print.