Skip navigation

Category Archives: social issues

What’s going on …?

The word ‘woke’ has been demeaned, disparaged and weaponized. Its original meaning needs reclaiming.

Real world support …

The Australian government’s social media ban for under 16 year olds began this week.

Le pouvoir caché de la pensée systèmes …

Le pouvoir caché de la pensée systèmes – Gouverner dans l’urgence climatique – The Hidden Power of Systems Thinking – Governing in the Climate Emergency.

The 2020 book by Ray Ison and Ed Straw has just been translated into French by Houda Khayame. This meant that the 27 diagrams and illustrations that I had developed with Ray Ison needed to be translated and the French words and text integrated into the originals. Alas, my schoolboy French … but a number of translation sites were so helpful.

One of the group, Franck Varenne acknowledged the team involved with the French version.

… for the book, click here.

Crossroads …

Cover illustration for the South Australian Council of Social Service SACOSS annual report. The community sector is at a crossroads…

Previous covers:

.

Small Town Reinvention …

The 2nd National Small Town Reinvention Conference was held at Kapunda, South Australia, 22-25 September. The cartoons illustrated just some of the many moments and messages over four great days.

The conference was another Peter Kenyon of The Bank of Ideas event. Supported by many – in particular Tony Piccolo MP who brought the conference to Kapunda.

The 28 cartoons were auctioned on the last day, the money raised was donated to the painting of the Kapunda silo art project.

Trashing the neighbourhood …

Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk once said, “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage.” He preferred the word ‘sympathy’. That is an insight.

At the moment, globally , empathy doesn’t rate highly.

Empathy isn’t to be trashed. It is a skill. It helps find that small piece of common ground between widely divergent stands, a starting point …

Nurturing stars …

Illustrations created in collaboration with Parry Agius, Linking Futures, for Star Dreaming -holistic athlete development. The dark emu image is used in each picture. These graphics illustrate preparing indigenous players for the Australian Football League AFL – which involves much more than just the player…

Other sketch drawings…

Overreaching …

Louise Adler: The special envoy’s plan is the latest push to weaponise antisemitism in Australia, as a relentless campaign pays off.

Don’t tell the grandchildren …

NSW Ombudsman exhibition …

The Parliament House exhibition NSW Ombudsman – Fifty years pursuing fairness for NSW 1975–2025 will be accessible Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm for the month of July. Details about NSW Parliament and the exhibition: https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/visit/events/Pages/Ombudsman50.aspx

In the 1980s one of my first regular cartooning assignments was illustrating a number of each year’s case studies in the South Australian Office of the Ombudsman annual reports. This led to also doing illustrations for the New South Wales Ombudsman – a number of which have been used in the exhibition and also in the History Report: https://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/50-years-pursuing-fairness-for-nsw-1975-2025

These were early days and it was real work experience for me.