PUNISHED AND STRAIGHTENED

It is simply impossible to draw a cartoon that is completely inoffensive to everyone.

They can't handle the truth

It is simply impossible to draw a cartoon that is completely inoffensive to everyone.

Even the most poignant and heartfelt cartoon tribute — and there were many — to the murdered staff at Charlie Hebdo, for example, would presumably offend fundamentalist Islamic extremists who regard the slain French as godless infidels.

For that matter, if The Australian’s Bill Leak were to file a cartoon that was nothing more than a blank space with a border around it, you can bet at least one person would be offended. And that would be Bill’s editor.

In the long run, however, Bill might be well advised to go the blank space route. Anything edgier is only going to get him into further trouble.

Last week Bill received notice of a complaint to the Human Rights Commission over a cartoon published by The Australian on August 4. You’ve probably already seen the piece in question. It shows an Aboriginal police officer, unruly kid in hand, saying to the child’s father: “You’ll have to sit down and talk to your son about personal responsibility.” The father, holding a can of VB, ­replies: “Yeah righto, what’s his name then?”

As a comment on the utterly dysfunctional condition of many remote Aboriginal communities, Bill’s 19-word illustration made a greater impact than any number of unreadable thousand-page government reports.

And that may have been the problem. In an era of safe spaces and trigger warnings, certain touchy types are more easily outraged by a depiction of injustice — especially if that depiction is by a white man — than by the injustice itself.

The Human Rights Commission’s Tim Soutphommasane, who’d be a 23-point certainty for the board game hall of fame if only Scrabble allowed proper nouns, made certain of maximum outrage by encouraging submissions to the HRC.

“Our society shouldn’t endorse racial stereotyping of Aboriginal Australians or any other racial or ethnic group,” the Race Discrimination Commissioner told Fairfax Media.

Fairfax’s report, which appeared online the same day Bill’s cartoon was published, noted Soutphommasane’s belief that “a significant number” of people would agree the cartoon was a racial stereotype of Aboriginal Australians, and also included this line: “He urged anyone who was offended by it to lodge a complaint under the Racial Discrimination Act.”

This is extraordinary. The Human Rights Commission is now preparing to sit in judgment in a case clearly already decided by one of the HRC’s most senior officials. As Homer Simpson once asked: “Who made you Judge Judy and executioner?”

A complaint duly arrived and is now being acted upon by the HRC. As it happens, that particular complaint also arrived on the same day as the cartoon’s publication. It will be interesting to discover precisely why that complaint was selected from no doubt many others. Perhaps it was submitted prior to the publication of Judge Judy Soutphommasane’s comments, which the HRC might imagine gives them some room to claim it wasn’t influenced.

Of course, the timing of any complaint has no bearing at all on the HRC’s evident bias, made abundantly clear by Soutphommasane. Legal debate over the HRC’s authority in the Leak case will be intriguing.

There are other, broader issues involved. One is the imbalance in responsibility between complainants and the HRC’s targets. Filing a complaint is remarkably easy. Just tick a few boxes on the handy forms provided at the HRC’s website and Bob’s your potential litigant.

For those facing a complaint, however, things are rather more challenging, and vastly more time-consuming.

I should know. Late last year I copped an HRC complaint over a completely non-controversial blog item. The HRC subsequently demanded a response within days, which involved a written submission following extended discussion with two very skilled lawyers.

Their excellent work meant I was able to avoid further ordeals through conciliation talks and the like. Had matters been addressed less competently, there was the additional possibility of me ending up in court.

Finally, several months after the complaint was lodged, the HRC informed me in an email that the complaint had been closed and no further action would be taken. Presumably the HRC thinks this is an example of how fair and decent they are; after all, I avoided any negative outcome. But that doesn’t take into account time lost and months of worry endured.

As the US-based columnist Mark Steyn, no stranger himself to the draining attention of official punishers and straighteners, once pointed out: “Eventual guilt or innocence is irrelevant. The process is the punishment.”

At the same time, the process perpetuates the likes of the HRC. Every minute spent in judgment of me or Bill Leak or any other target is another minute providing self-justification for the HRC’s ridiculous $25 million per year existence.

Someone ought to grab Malcolm Turnbull by the collar and tell him: “You’ll have to sit down and talk to the HRC about personal responsibility.”

Ideally, that discussion would end with the closure of the HRC and the repeal of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Or perhaps the government could add a new element to the HRC’s complaints process. Let’s see how much more streamlined matters would become if, every time a complaint is dismissed, defendants received $25,000, from the HRC commissioners themselves.

They might act a little more sensibly if they have some skin in the game.