Statements
Bill Leak was ‘uncooperative’, says woman who lodged racial discrimination complaint
A WA Aboriginal woman who lodged a racial discrimination complaint against Australian newspaper cartoonist Bill Leak said she dropped the case because she did not think he was going to cooperate with the conciliation process.
Melissa Dinnison, 25, said the cartoon — which showed a police officer returning a child to an apparently drunk father who did not know his child’s name — was humiliating.
She told AM she never lodged the complaint for compensation, and wanted instead to talk to Leak about the impact his cartoon had on real, everyday Aboriginal people.
But Ms Dinnison said Leak and his lawyers had made it clear that they “weren’t going to cooperate with the conciliation process”.
“So I began to feel that I was being used to push an agenda and I felt that The Australian wanted to coax me into taking this to court because they were confident that they would win,” she said.
“And that a second win against 18C would help to push their agenda, and I guess watering down the Australian Human Rights Commission or even dismantling it completely.”
Ms Dinnison said she did not want compensation, but sent to the Human Rights Commission a list of outcomes that she would like from the process, which included talking to Leak.
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