After 55 years at The Age, Michael Leunig filed his final cartoon for the newspaper last week after he was fired by Nine in what he described as “a throat-cutting exercise”. The popular cartoonist has been declared an Australian Living Treasure, but has also drawn ire over the decades for various controversies including his critique of working mothers who use childcare and taking an anti-vaccination stance.
So should we mourn the axing of Michael Leunig? In today’s Friday Fight, former editor of The Age Michael Smith argues in the affirmative, and The Saturday Paper’s arts editor Alison Croggon argues in the negative.
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