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Cartoonist leads Walkley Awards boycott over fossil fuel sponsorship

Australia’s national journalism awards are tainted by their association with the fossil fuel industry, says cartoonist Jon Kudelka.

1 Sep 2023 13:30

Richard Watts

Writing and Publishing

Image: Cartoon © John Kuldelka, republished with permission.

Australia’s most prestigious awards for journalism, the Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism, were established by Ampol Petroleum founder Sir William Gaston Walkley in 1956.

Ampol’s business model is intrinsically connected to the ‘era of global boiling’ as a result of its extraction of fossil fuels and contribution to human-induced climate change. It recently began sponsoring the Walkley Awards again after a hiatus.

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Richard Watts

Richard Watts OAM is ArtsHub's National Performing Arts Editor; he also presents the weekly program SmartArts on Three Triple R FM. Richard is a life member of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, a Melbourne Fringe Festival Living Legend, and was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards' Facilitator's Prize in 2020. In 2021 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards Association. Most recently, Richard received a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in June 2024. Follow him on Twitter: @richardthewatts