Cash-strapped legal service defends case against cartoon

A cash-strapped Aboriginal legal service has defended its decision to run a case against Bill Leak’s cartoon.

ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington.

The cash-strapped Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia has defended its decision to run a case in the Human Rights Commission against Bill Leak’s contentious cartoon about parental responsibility and has linked Leak’s image of an incompetent indigenous father to hate crimes.

ALS chief executive Dennis Eggington said the cartoon published in August could not be viewed completely separately from crimes against Aboriginal people, including the death on August 29 of indigenous boy Elijah Doughty who was allegedly knocked off a stolen motorbike in the Goldfields town of Kalgoorlie-Boulder. Elijah’s death was a flashpoint in poor race relations and sparked a riot. A non-Aboriginal man, the owner of the motorbike, has been charged with manslaughter.

“This is about the treatment of Aboriginal people,’’ Dr Eggington said. “It’s the principle: whether it’s Leak’s cartoon or an Aboriginal person being thrown out of a pub, these things incite racial hatred.”

Dr Eggington said that his organisation was stretched, and there were times when it could not take on civil and family law cases due to high demand and an almost total reliance on federal grants.

The ALSWA had income of $14.93 million in the 2014-15 financial year, according to its most recent annual report

“There are times when we have to shut the gate on family and civil matters because of lack of funds,” he said.

But Dr Eggington described the case against Leak’s cartoon as significant and proper because it involved section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which he believes has the potential to heal relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.