Unfortunately, there is a small element of truth in this cartoon.

That is a shame. I believe that this is a great loss for the Greens.

Couple of points about this cartoon and “issue”:

1) The journalist involved in reporting Andrew Wilkie’s resignation from the Australian Greens quotes a so-called “prominent” Greens member as saying “He [Wilkie] was never a tree-hugger”. I find this quote VERY hard to believe - either this “prominent” person has a name, or they’re a piece of fictitious evidence to back up the main theme of the journalist’s story, a theme that Wilkie does not appear to share himself. 

2) Wilkie resigned from the Australian Greens and left in amicable circumstances, despite the journalistic spin mentioned above. At the time Wilkie was “... at pains to point out there remained many good people in the Greens Party against whom he harboured no grudge. He also was adamant that Australian politics needed a strong and vibrant Greens Party with broad appeal just as much as it needed the Labor and Liberal parties.”
But the cartoon’s text comments seem to indicate that Wilkie was sacked, and that the “Tassie” Greens are more than happy to see him go. Neither of these things are true.

3) Andrew Wilkie was a member of the Australian Greens, he stood as an Australian Greens candidate and has now resigned from the Australian Greens. He has nothing to do with Peg Putt, Nick McKim, Tim Morris or Kim Booth, so why does this cartoon slag off the “Tassie Greens” who have spent the last few months exposing, among other things, government attempts to subsidise Gunns’ pipeline, FoI inadequacies, problems with home building regulations and Ministerial lies told in Parliament? Not a lot of tree hugging or Wilkie-pushing there that I can see, so why are the “Tassie Greens” in the gun over Wilkie’s departure?

4) I know the two are superficially similar (salt&pepper;hair, and glasses), but on first and subsequent viewings, cartoon Wilkie looks a whole lot more like Steve Kons than Andrew Wilkie. I think you need to chunk Wilkie up a bit Lukas, he is solid in personality and solid in body, while Konsie falls over every time the phone rings.

It seems that the Greens don’t tolerate diversity.

A kind of political monoculture perhaps?

“either this ‘prominent’ person has a name, or they’re a piece of fictitious evidence to back up the main theme of the journalist’s story, a theme that Wilkie does not appear to share himself.”

In the hope of avoiding hypocrisy perhaps you would be good enough to tell us YOUR name?

“In the hope of avoiding hypocrisy perhaps you would be good enough to tell us YOUR name?

Posted by Jon Ayling”

And this has ‘what’ to do with either the article posted or the underlying truth in the cartoon?

There is more than a “small” element of truth in this cartoon it is absolutely spot on. Andrew Wilkie worked his heart out during the campaign and he was stymied, not by Bob Brown or Peg Putt but by the small but powerful cabal surrounding Bob who have more in common with cultists than professional political staffers.
These devotees of the Cult of Bob cannot abide the thought of anyone sharing the spotlight but their feverish devotion will do the Greens harm in the long run.
Bob Brown won’t be around forever and the Greens need to be grooming a charismatic figure with a national profile as heair apparent if they want to avoid the slow but inevitable decline of the Democrats.
Andrew Wilkie could have taken the Greens beyond being a fringe party and, like the Social Democrats in UK, turned them into a genuine third force. The question is, if Bob Brown was to go under a bulldozer, is there anyone who could keep the Greens in the news?

Congrats Lukas, you have pissed off Someone who Knows. Always the sign of a good cartoon.

Enjoying this very much. Keep it up.

John Wade,

I suggest you ask poster 3, “Someone Who Knows”.
Anonymity tends to lead to dubious credibility or baseless rumour. If someone has something valuable to contribute the least they can do is be honest as to their identity.

Cedric, is there something more that you know that you can tell us?  In what way was Andrew Wilkie stymied?  Why was he stymied?  How should things have been run?
If things had been done differently would he have been elected? Is he mostly just angry that he didn’t get elected?

It is a rather good cartoon - well drawn, points subtly made. A big improvement over some of the other pictorial contributions on TT. I hope that Lukas can get a gig or two from some paying customers.

I do have a lot of respect for Bob Brown but Cedric is right about one thing.  Brown does not have adequate political staffers.  Don’t ever call his office when they are ‘busy’ or simply have something better to do than answer the phone.  His staff let him down.

Ada, he lets himself down as well.  When the federal budget was being delivered, where was Bob Brown? - glad-handing around South America receiving some piss-ant award for something or other, leaving a massive carbon footprint, courtesy of the aviation sector….