The annual Stanley Awards, Australia’s premier awards for cartoonists, has announced its long list for best climate cartoon honours. Born out of a boycott of fossil fuel sponsorship, from this year the prize is named in honour of Jon Kudelka, whose principled stand in 2023 inspired fellow cartoonists to withdraw from the Walkley Awards.
Fri 9 Oct 2026 12.04 AEDT
On Wednesday in Fiji, Pacific ministers said what Australian ministers have so far avoided saying. The region needs a plan to end its dependence on coal, oil and gas. At a high-level pre-COP31 side event in Nadi, Navigating the Pacific Energy Transition, ministers discussed their intention to develop a regional roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.
Port Phillip Council has unanimously passed a motion calling for the Federal Government to fund a National Climate Compensation Fund with a levy on gas and coal production. The inner-Melbourne local government area, which covers suburbs such as St Kilda, Elwood, South Melbourne and Port Melbourne, faces increased risk of flooding and coastal damage in the face of climate change.
The annual Stanley Awards, Australia’s premier awards for cartoonists, has announced its long list for best climate cartoon honours.
Born out of a boycott of fossil fuel sponsorship, from this year the prize is named in honour of Jon Kudelka, whose principled stand in 2023 inspired fellow cartoonists to withdraw from the Walkley Awards.
Presented for the third time, the award recognises cartoonists who’ve captured the absurdities of climate policy and exposed the glaring hypocrisy, political failures and human consequences of global warming.
Australian Cartoonists Association (ACA) president Cathy Wilcox said the competition took a short break in 2025 to “take stock of the dire state of the world”.
“This year, in 2026, the world is not getting any better, and all the terrible things – war, dictatorship, late-stage capitalism and the inexorable rise of AI and data centres – have all exacerbated the climate catastrophe as we watch in horror. And the cartoonists have been telling us about it all along,” she said.
Matt Bissett Johnson
Roy Bisson
Peter Broelman
Harry Bruce
Oslo Davis
Chris Downes
Lindsay Foyle
Matt Golding
Jess Harwood
Megan Herbert
Pat Hudson
Simon Kneebone
Fiona Katauskas
Gerard Peigneux
Glen Lelievre
David Pope
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David Rowe
Andrew Weldon
Danny Zemp
First Dog on the Moon
Judy Horacek
Mr Kudelka, an award-winning Tasmanian cartoonist, died of brain cancer in February.
Photo: Youtube/Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
“Since we lost one of our most astute and effective callers-out of bullshit in Jon Kudelka, we wanted to honour him, and we’re grateful to have the blessing of his wife Maggie Kudelka for us to name the award after him,” said Ms Wilcox.
Mr Kudelka boycotted the Walkley Awards in 2023 over their sponsorship with fossil fuel company Ampol.
In a blog post explaining his decision, he noted that the award categories had been revamped that year but calls to introduce a dedicated climate reporting category had gone unanswered.
“With the degradation of the environment being the greatest scientific, economic, and moral issue of our time, this seems like a missed opportunity, and to put it bluntly, with fossil fuels being in the vanguard of the problem and a fossil fuel company being a major sponsor of the awards, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if there might be a causal link there,” he wrote.
“Whether there is or not, and I’m a cartoonist, not an investigative journalist, so who can say, it looks bad.”
“I know that Australia is a very small place and only the impotent are pure etc, but climate change is an actual existential crisis, and the media have to play their part and ruthlessly interrogate why the hell real cuts to fossil fuel use aren’t happening urgently.”
Shortly afterwards, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Walkley Foundation was undertaking a review of its sponsorship policy.
“Jon was the whole reason we kicked off a climate cartoon event in the first place, after his principled boycott of some more famous Australian journalism awards because they were sponsored by fossil fuel corporations,” Ms Wilcox said.
“He led the way for many other cartoonists (and some journos) likewise withdrawing, ultimately leading to a change in sponsorship.”
The Point is the sponsor of this year’s Kudelka Climate Cartoon Award.
The 2026 Kudelka Climate Cartoon Award shortlist will be announced on 16 October, with the winner to be unveiled at the Stanley Awards gala dinner on 31 October.
