‘Brown Peril’ cartoon

New Zealand Herald “Brown Peril” cartoon

The New Zealand Herald has run a cartoon today reflecting on the Australian Government’s increasingly negative attitude towards New Zealanders.

It depicts ‘The Brown Peril, The Kiwi Octopus’ in a design clearly based on an anti-Chinese cartoon published by The Bulletin in 1888 at the height of fear about Chinese immigration into the Australian colonies.

However, unlike the Bulletin cartoon, the NZ Herald’s one mocks Australia’s anti-immigrant sentiment – apart from ‘crime’, all of the other tentacles of the Kiwi octopus carry positives for Australia – sports, art, jobs, and so on.

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