Mundine, Price threaten to sue Financial Review over ‘Nazi’ cartoon
Two leading No campaigners, Warren Mundine and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, have sent legal letters threatening to sue The Australian Financial Review over a political cartoon published earlier this month they say likened them to Nazis.
The image, produced by cartoonist David Rowe and published on Friday, October 6, shows Mr Mundine, Senator Price and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton walking past a series of red, black and yellow flags emblazoned with the word “No”, where the letter “o” resembled Adolf Hitler.
Titled The Standards We Walk Past..., it was published amid news coverage of neo-Nazi groups campaigning against the Voice to parliament, attending with a large banner at a No rally, and posting a video on social media showing them burning an Aboriginal flag while performing a Nazi salute.
Leading No campaigners Warren Mundine and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Over the past week, both Ms Price and Mr Mundine have sent concerns notices to the Financial Review asking for the cartoon to be removed and for an apology to be published, and for their lawyers’ fees to be paid. A concerns notice is a necessary first step towards filing a defamation lawsuit.
On Wednesday, Mr Mundine’s lawyer, Patrick George from Company Giles, wrote to the Financial Review editor-in-chief Michael Stutchbury and Mr Rowe saying the cartoon conveyed 18 defamatory imputations. He claimed it implied Mr Mundine was a Nazi, supported Nazi views, and inferred his support for the No campaign “is based on the same prejudice that characterised Nazi ideology”.
“Whatever may have been Mr Rowe’s subjective intention, the Cartoon has had the effect of associating Mr Mundine with Adolf Hitler and Nazism and neo-Nazis,” Mr George wrote.
“Each of the
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