Draft:Matilda Magazine

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: The draft does not demonstrate notability under WP:NOTABILITY or WP:RS. It could be resubmitted if reliable, independent, secondary sources provide in-depth coverage of the magazine’s cultural or historical significance. CONFUSED SPIRIT(Thilio).Talk 10:18, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

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Matilda (magazine)

Editor	Robbie Swan
Categories	Current affairs, humour, satire
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Roger Lilford
Founded	1985
First issue	March 1985
Country	Australia
Based in	Canberra, Australian Capital Territory
Language	English

Background and Overview

Matilda magazine was a 64-page Australian political humor and satire magazine launched on 22nd February 1985 in Canberra by its founders Roger Lilford and Robbie Swan. It was cast in the same mold as Private Eye but tipped its hat to early Australian titles like the original Bulletin, Smith’s Weekly, and Nation Review. It was compiled in Canberra, typeset in Sydney, and printed in Melbourne. The first issue featured a cover poster by Michael Leunig depicting the little Aussie battler/jolly swagman reading a copy of Matilda under the shade of the Coolabah tree and surrounded by his Australian marsupial friends. The Australian National Gallery helped sell the posters.

Matilda’s roots were said to be found in the Swaggie culture of the Great Depression era, when news, gossip, and jokes would be spread around the country by unemployed people travelling from town to town looking for work. Their swags were often referred to as a ‘Matilda’.

File:Matilda Magazine Publisher Roger Lilford 1985 Portrait.jpg

Matilda Magazine Publisher Roger Lilford 1985 Portrait

Matilda was born off the back of an off-beat trucking company called Tommy Tortoise Removals, which was owned by an alternative Canberra entrepreneur, Roger Lilford. It started out as a single FJ Holden ute, purchased for $40. The company’s first job was to run a load of false teeth around to Canberra dentists, which developed into a regular gig. Lilford employed removalists with disabilities, including one with a wooden leg, and told suspicious police and clients that he paid his staff in weed.

Matilda’s editor, Robbie Swan, had previously edited the national alternative magazine, Simply Living, and was a contributor of Canberra-based political stories to Penthouse and Playboy. He had also spent three years in the Swiss Alps studying Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the early 1970s.

Matilda had a circulation of 30,000-40,000 copies per month and a readership of 150,000 to 200,000 per month. ^{[14] [43]} The magazine was run from a private house in Empire Circuit in the leafy, upmarket Canberra suburb of Deakin and was 100 metres from the back door of the Prime Minister's Lodge.

Robbie Swan (editor) lived in his office and slept on his desk at night with an uncaged budgie called Mr. Whitehead. Associate editor, Stephen Brouwer, brought a young kangaroo to the premises, which lived in the backyard.

File:Matilda Magazine Sir Les Patterson’s Epic by Barry Humphries 1985.jpg

Matilda Magazine Sir Les Patterson’s Epic by Barry Humphries 1985

Launched in Canberra, Australia, Matilda Magazine operated during a period of political and social change in Australia. It often addressed topics backed by the use of larrikin black and white press gallery photos that the national newspapers wouldn’t run. The publication became a site of both journalistic investigation and cultural subversion, tackling issues like press freedom, censorship, and the use of defamation law to suppress dissident voices.

The magazine’s format and pitch were created with help from Richard Neville (Oz Magazine editor), Stephen Brouwer (press gallery journalist), and Bill Pinwill (national intelligence analyst). It also drew from the UK’s Private Eye, the US’s National Lampoon, London Oz, and the Living Daylights.

Known for its confrontational editorial stance and countercultural tone, Matilda became a platform for radical political commentary, satire, and cultural criticism through the mid-1980s. The magazine is remembered for its high-profile contributors and its contributions to Australian independent media. Moreover, Matilda Magazine introduced several new cartoonists to the national audience.

The magazine’s operation was predicated on frequent legal challenges, and it became known for responding aggressively to defamation writs. It received 17 defamation writs in its short life, mainly from conservative politicians and celebrities. It was responsible for the first parliamentary sacking of a Supreme Court judge in Australia’s history. Matilda also used litigation as an opportunity to publicly critique the legal system and the limits it placed on freedom of expression.

Content and Editorial Focus

Matilda Magazine editorialized on a wide array of topics with a strong emphasis on:

• Political corruption and media manipulation
• Government accountability
• Freedom of speech and civil liberties
• The impact and misuse of defamation laws in Australia
• Social justice and cultural critique
• Aboriginal justice issues
• Sexual freedoms

It regularly published articles exposing misconduct, as well as targeting institutions and media conglomerates. The publication’s approach often resulted in conflict with powerful interests, leading to multiple legal challenges.

Contributors

File:Matilda Magazine Bob Hawke Wine Cask Ad 1985.jpg

Matilda Magazine Bob Hawke Wine Cask Ad 1985

The magazine was initially set up with help from a small team of advisors, including:

• Richard Neville: Futurist, writer, and co-founder of Oz Magazine and The Living Daylights.
• Germaine Greer: feminist author and academic.·        
• Bill Pinwill: Intelligence and spy writer.
• Phillip Adams: Writer and broadcaster
• Jack Waterford: Editor of the Canberra Times.
• Mungo MacCallum: Press gallery journalist

Cartoonist included:

Michael Leunig, Victoria Roberts, Jenny Coopes, Bill Leak, Geoff Pryor, Patrick Cook, Bruce Petty, Mary Leunig, Gaynor Cardew, Mark Cornwall, Peter Fairlie, and Ross Bateup.

Writers included:

Barry Humphries, Wendy Harmer, Morris Glietzman, Sheryle Bagwell, Howard Jacobson, Kathy Lette, Robyn Davidson, James McQueen, Rosemary Dobson, Geoffrey Dutton, Amanda Spake, Trevor Farrant, A.D. Hope, Julie Clark, Geoff Page, Ian Warden, Barry Dickins, and Tim Winton.

Legal Challenges

Matilda Magazine faced numerous legal threats, particularly in the form of defamation writs. The magazine leaned into its role as a provocateur and frequently responded to lawsuits with counter-commentary and public challenges to Australia's defamation laws. Editor Robbie Swan and publisher Roger Lilford also pushed back against legal and institutional pressures.

The magazine hired lawyers Richard Refshauge and Mark Love to defend its defamation writs, and was successful with none of them ever costing the publishers large sums of money. Refshauge went on to become a Supreme Court judge in the ACT.

Legal issues

File:Matilda Magazine Issue 7 Australian Sport Gets a Godfather Cartoon 1985.jpg

Story: Australian Sport Gets a Godfather. Matilda magazine Issue #7, Sept 1985. Illustration by Geoff Pryor.

The magazine submitted a list of defamation writs to the Guinness Book of Records claiming the most number of writs in a first year of publication.

Matilda broke with traditional journalistic ethics around defamation actions and published all correspondence, including the writs, on its Letters page. The magazine showed a level of disdain towards enraged litigants and their legal representatives, who had their high-handed legal jargon and hollow threats of retaliation aired in public for the first time.

Coming just after a major expose, these tended to increase the satirical level of the story by satirizing the complainant’s lawyers. In its short life of 18 months, Matilda was sued by 17 different people, ranging from Prime Minister Bob Hawke to the mistress of a conservative party leader. Two of those writs led to major national scandals.

Celebrity Doctor, Geoffrey Edelsten

File:Matildas Annual Awards.jpg

Matilda Magazine Annual Awards 1984 Announcement

In its September 1985 issue, Matilda published a story entitled ‘Australian Sport Gets a Godfather’ by investigative journalist Kate Beauchamp. The story documented the purchase of the Sydney Swans football team for $6.5 million by the celebrity doctor, Geoffrey Edelsten – a man who owned a fleet of pink luxury cars and ran a network of medical clinics with grand pianos and chandeliers in the waiting rooms.

The article exposed the fact that the National Crime Authority and other legal agencies were investigating him for drug dealing, major Medicare fraud, and bird-smuggling. The story led to the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, refusing an offer by the club to be its number one ticket holder. It also caused Australian Democrats Senator Don Chipp to ask a series of questions in the Senate about the article and its allegations.

Edelsten sued the magazine, its editor, and the journalist, alleging that the article had brought him “into hatred, ridicule and contempt and had gravely injured his character, reputation and profession”. Matilda promptly invited Edelsten to attend the Annual Awards night and pick up the Fluffy Toilet Seat Award.

Edelsten’s actions against the journalist and the magazine lapsed, but his action against Robbie Swan went on for another two years. Finally, Swan was served a notice to attend court while he was on air with Phillip Adams at Radio 2UE in Sydney. As he walked into court a few weeks later with hitherto unpublished Costigan Commission documents on the good doctor, Edelsten’s lawyers decided not to proceed with the case.x`

File:Matilda Magazine Robbie Swan and Frank Arnold 1985 Portrait.jpg

Matilda’s editor, Robbie Swan (left) with art director, Frank Arnold (right)

The judge was not amused. A year later, Dr. Edelsten went to jail for perverting the course of justice and died a few years later.

Supreme Court Judge, Angelo Vasta

In September 1986, a Queensland Supreme Court judge, Angelo Vasta, sued Matilda magazine for defamatory statements made about him in three separate issues. It was the first time in Queensland’s history that a Supreme Court judge had sued for defamation and only the third in the history of the British Empire.

File:Matilda Magazine Issue 4 You’re No Sir Laurence Olivia Gunston Tapes 1985.jpg

‘You’re no Sir Lawrence, Olivia’. The Gunston Tapes; Trevor Farrant, Matilda magazine #4 June 1985.

The first article alleged that two journalists who shared a taxi with Vasta heard him confuse the Australian Administrative Appeals Tribunal (A.A.T.) with Trans Australian Airlines (T.A.A.), saying the latter had ‘just sold it’. The second involved a comment from the magazine that there had been an ‘Italian-Freudian slip’ in its earlier reporting when it had referred to the judge as ‘Basta’ - Italian slang for ‘bastard’.

The third involved an article entitled ‘Vastabation’ wherein Matilda implied that Vasta had ‘the intelligence of a cane toad’ by directing a murder trial jury to take more notice of the prosecution’s statements than the defence. By the time the case got to court, Matilda had ceased publishing, and so none of the defendants fronted court. Vasta won by default. However, no damages were awarded at the time.

A couple of years later, during the Fitzgerald Enquiry into police corruption, it was revealed that Vasta had perjured himself so badly in the defamation trial that he became the first Supreme Court judge in Australia to be sacked by a parliament.

Apart from being a Supreme Court judge, Vasta also part-owned a company which produced ‘Softex’ toilet paper. His court case against Matilda helped to bring his company’s financial problems to the attention of the Australian Tax Office and to the fact that, among other things, he had achieved tax benefits of $120,000 without reporting them. He was ordered to pay his own $400,000 legal bill.

File:Matilda Magazine Issue 12 Around the Traps Builders Labourers 1986.jpg

The portrait of the Builders Labourer’s Federation ‘compliance’ team was published in #12.

Legacy

Eventually, Matilda Magazine folded due to financial constraints. However, its influence still existed, and after some time, an unrelated digital publication, New Matilda, emerged following the original magazine’s closure. It was both a product of and a contributor to the Australian counterculture movement of the late 20th century.

It was inspired by publications like Oz Magazine and provided a platform for various voices in media and politics. As part of its contribution to the Australian arts and media scene, Matilda Magazine formed the Matilda Awards, recognizing excellence in journalism, political cartooning, and literary commentary.

Archival Status

File:Matilda Magazine Issue 2 Susan and Susan Camping Cartoon 1985.jpg

Susan and Susan, ‘Camping’, Matilda Magazine #2, April 1985.

Today, Matilda Magazine is preserved in the National Library of Australia, which holds a separate Matilda Collection. This collection includes archived issues and related materials that document the magazine’s editorial history and public reception.

An additional retrospective article was published years later by the Australian National Library Magazine, providing further insight into the publication’s history and cultural significance. A separate piece on New Matilda from June 2010 also references the original Matilda Magazine, offering a brief overview of its legacy and founding personalities.

Surprisingly, the magazine’s demise did not come about through bankruptcy or giant payouts to powerful politicians. Instead, the defamation laws strangled Matilda in ways founders could never have imagined. Litigants increasingly began suing distributors, printers, news agents, and the editor and publisher.

Such was the breadth and power of defamation laws in the mid-1980s. Soon, no one in the country would print or distribute the magazine, and the publishers reluctantly paid out their contributors and staff and closed the doors.

When Matilda started, defamation cases needed to show both truth and public interest to be successful. When it ceased publication, moves were afoot to change that. It took a while, but in 2006, Australia adopted uniform defamation laws which relied on ‘truth' only as a defence to a prosecution.

However, Matilda continued to be silenced from beyond the grave. A small selection of its cartoons, including the Flag Competition, went to the Australian Museum of Democracy instead of the Australian National Library. However, the winner was conspicuously absent from the rest of the collection, deemed obscene and anti-Japanese by the censors at the Museum.

Gallery

• Cover of #1 Matilda magazine featuring Michael Leunig’s ’The Little Australian’. March 1985[33]
  Cover of #1 Matilda magazine featuring Michael Leunig’s ’The Little Australian’. March 1985
• Cover of #2 Matilda magazine featuring Patrick Cook’s ’Two Swaggies’. April 1985.[34]
  Cover of #2 Matilda magazine featuring Patrick Cook’s ’Two Swaggies’. April 1985.
• Cover of #3 Matilda magazine featuring Mary Leunig’s ‘Housewives’. May 1985.[35]
  Cover of #3 Matilda magazine featuring Mary Leunig’s ‘Housewives’. May 1985.
• Cover of #4 Matilda magazine featuring Geoff Pryor’s ‘Hot Gossip’. June 1985.[36]
  Cover of #4 Matilda magazine featuring Geoff Pryor’s ‘Hot Gossip’. June 1985.
• Cover of #5 Matilda magazine featuring Victoria Roberts’ Leaps and Bounds’. July 1985[37]
  Cover of #5 Matilda magazine featuring Victoria Roberts’ Leaps and Bounds’. July 1985
• Cover of #6 Matilda magazine featuring Yvonne Sutherland’s ‘Read in High Places’. August 1985.[38]
  Cover of #6 Matilda magazine featuring Yvonne Sutherland’s ‘Read in High Places’. August 1985.
• Cover of #7 Matilda magazine featuring Bill Leak’s ‘Burning Issues’. September 1985.[39]
  Cover of #7 Matilda magazine featuring Bill Leak’s ‘Burning Issues’. September 1985.
• Cover of #8 Matilda magazine featuring Matthew Martin’s ‘Making Waves’. November 1985.[40]
  Cover of #8 Matilda magazine featuring Matthew Martin’s ‘Making Waves’. November 1985.
• Cover of #9 Matilda magazine featuring Micheal Leunig’s ‘Bum Biting Summer Issue’. Dec 1985/Jan 1986.[41]
  Cover of #9 Matilda magazine featuring Micheal Leunig’s ‘Bum Biting Summer Issue’. Dec 1985/Jan 1986.
• Cover of #10 Matilda magazine featuring Victoria Roberts’ Better Ned than Red’. February 1986.[42]
  Cover of #10 Matilda magazine featuring Victoria Roberts’ Better Ned than Red’. February 1986.
• Cover of #11 Matilda magazine featuring Geoff Pryor’s ‘One Year Old Today’. March 1986.[43]
  Cover of #11 Matilda magazine featuring Geoff Pryor’s ‘One Year Old Today’. March 1986.
• Cover of #12 Matilda magazine featuring Lady Di. June 1986[44]
  Cover of #12 Matilda magazine featuring Lady Di. June 1986