Artist: Warren Brown 1989
It’s official - Bob Hawke is the most popular Australian Prime Minister ever amongst the nation’s cartoonists, a new survey has revealed.
In a poll conducted this week by the Australian Cartoonists’ Association, the nation’s scribblers were asked to nominate their “favourite Prime Minister to draw”. Hawkie won with 28.5% of the vote. Tony Abbott came second on 23%. Both John Howard and Julia Gillard came in equal third place.
The Daily Telegraph’s Warren Brown concurred with the result.
“My favourite to draw would have to be Bob Hawke,” he said. “In his prime, his face was broad, crevassed and suntanned, his mouth in a kind of permanent scowl, eyes laying agressively beneath those eyebrows - great scimitars of disapproval - the whole lot topped with a luxuriant shock of immaculate silver hair.”
“Tony Abbott by a mile,” said the Sydney Morning Herald’s John Shakespeare. “If you exaggerated nothing about his face, he’d still look like a cartoon.”
The Herald Sun’s Mark Knight and the Newcastle Herald’s Peter Lewis supported Gillard’s claim to the title.
“She’s very easy to draw with sharply-defined features,” said Lewis. “A strong, intelligent female leader that I respected.”