Crikey! Robert Irwin Angry at a Cartoon

Robert Irwin, the 20-year-old son of the late Australian wildlife conservation icon Steve Irwin, has recently become the face of the massive new “Queensland is Bluey’s world for real life” tourist campaign. The Queensland Government obviously is tapping into the global popularity of local sensation Bluey with this being its biggest tourism campaign in a decade. The Queensland Premier Steven Miles even released a media statement about this. Although the Government and Robert Irwin seem to like Bluey, there’s one cartoon they don’t seem to like quite as much… Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain cartoons.

In their latest cartoon titled, “The State of Queensland”, a caricature of Mr Irwin, alongside his “best mate Bluey”, states, “The Queensland Government has given us a disgusting amount of money to show you the state of Queensland.” And then they go on a tour of a cartoon version of my home state of Queensland riddled with social and political problems. For example, they find a beach where only people of a certain ethnicity are allowed to frequent, noting that a couple of years ago, the title deeds of some parts of Fraser Island were handed to the Butchulla people, and last year, local residents have been chased off and threatened preventing them access to a Burrum Heads beach; Mr Irwin and Bluey see people in a queue, mistakenly thinking they’re lining up for a theme park, but they’re actually lining up for an inspection of a dilapidated rental accommodation; They take a look at a pristine rainforest full of wind turbines, here’s the real picture of the Chalumbin Wind Farm, and here’s the Premier showing off his masterpiece, much to the ire of local conservationists. Even the ABC had a dig, “Chalumbin Wind Farm proposal adjacent to World Heritage-protected rainforests draws traditional owners’ ire”; Mr Irwin’s LandCruiser gets stolen by some local delinquents, ABC: “Violent crime nearly three times worse since 2020 in Queensland”; Bluey falls down a pothole in the Bruce Highway needing to go to a public hospital, where they find out the wait time is six months, noting SBS have recently reported that “patients are waiting almost twice as long for planned surgery than they were 20 years ago.” There’s even a cameo appearance by Premier Steven Miles himself, I reckon that’s a pretty good likeness, and Mr Irwin finishes with the line, “I can’t believe this is the state of Queensland.”

So what do you think happened? Do you think everyone had a good laugh and moved on? No, of course not. The Premier commented, “This is what Pauline Hanson does. She has been doing it for decades now. She comes up with a controversial thing. I think it’s pretty offensive to me, to Steve Irwin, and to Bluey, and who could offend Bluey? You all put it on the news and she gets the results she wants, so I am not going to give it any more oxygen.” Sorry Premier, the fact you even mentioned it means you’ve already given it plenty of oxygen.

And Robert Irwin, what did he do? He threatened legal action! Mr Irwin demanded through his lawyer that the video be taken down — a directive that One Nation promptly ignored.

Ms Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby, who will contest the seat of Keppel in the upcoming state election, said, “It’s hard to know exactly what Robert is offended by, because the reality is, Robert was the hero in the episode, not the villain. I think Robert just needs to lighten up. I really think he’s kicked an own goal here. His dad always had a good sense of humour and most Queenslanders, most Aussies, always saw that larrikin side of Steve.”

Even some of his fans think he went a bit too far, “Fans abandon Robert Irwin for threatening to sue Pauline Hanson over playful cartoon he claims ‘mocked’ him”.

Whether you like One Nation or not, to be fair to them, I think they’re on point here. This is clearly a work of satire. I think they may have even pulled their punches with regards to Robert Irwin. They weren’t mocking him. They were mocking the Queensland Government and their new tourism campaign.

Do you think all this negative publicity hurt the video’s performance? Of course not! More than 300,000 views on YouTube, and over 4.9 million views on X. This is what we call the Streisand Effect, named after American singer Barbra Streisand, whose attorney attempted in 2003 to suppress the publication of a photograph showing her clifftop mansion in Malibu, but inadvertently drew far greater attention to the previously obscure photograph. Perhaps we need to rename this to the Irwin Effect.

To be fair, Robert Irwin chose to partner himself with a government that’s on the nose. He’s put himself in the spotlight. Having gone down that path, and presumably being paid to do it, he has to expect some blowback. If he can’t handle that, well I suppose he should step out of the spotlight. If his goal was to silence One Nation by suing them, clearly, it’s been a catastrophic failure.

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Allégro by Emmit Fenn