Moments of Truth
A counter-history of Australia's recent political history

Bill Leak, one of our most potent and exhilarating cartoonists, presents an iconoclastic history of Australia from the "Tampa" election to mid 2005.

Leak graphically illustrates a period unprecedented in its 'bumptiousness, self importance and stupidity'; a time when the cynical manipulation of public opinion and political bad faith reached unheard of levels.

Abroad we want all the way with the US of A, abandoning national sovereignty in the war on terror and in a search for imaginary weapons, while at home we incarcerated kids behind barbed wire in the desert. Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Baxter came to represent the new international standard of prisoner welfare.

Each cartoon in this collection is a nugget of truth extracted from the barrage of lies and obfuscations that are the tools-in-trade of the successful politician. While it may not present us with a gallery of the finest souls in Australian public life, at least we have an awful lot of the finest noses, lips, eyebrows, and comical bodies.

"Merciless political mirth at its best."
Scott McLennan, Rip It Up

"My cartoons make good toilet paper. I know this because I had one sent back to me after someone had used it for this purpose... It's a rare thing to draw a cartoon and receive a genuinely humorous critique.Funny that."
Bill Leak

Format: 220 x 230mm, hardback
Pages: 192

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