Canberra Times cartoonist David Pope's "He drew first" sketch is one of 80 cartoons in this year's exhibition. Credit:Graham Tidy She spoke at the opening of this year's Behind the Lines 2015: The year's best political cartoons exhibition, which has highlighted the rivers of ink that flowed from the pens of Australia's most prominent political cartoonists after the attacks. Ten cartoons drawn in the wake of the deadly shooting are on display among 80 political sketches from 39 cartoonists at Canberra's Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. Ms Bishop said the global outpouring of anger and grief after the attacks was "utterly profound" and said Pope's cartoon had come to symbolise the horror of the shooting to many people. "It just encapsulates the brutality of the terrorists. Such is the power of this image that it received 60,000 [Twitter] retweets and 30,000 favourites in 24 hours."

David Pope's cartoon drawn in the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris. She said it was "most appropriate" that Pope and his cartoon had been recognised in the Walkley Awards, held on Thursday night. Ms Bishop, who presented a signed and framed copy of the the sketch to staff at Charlie Hebdo in April, said cartoons were a weapon of free people across the world to hold the powerful to account. They were also used by the disenfranchised and the voiceless to exert their universal human rights and freedoms, she said. "Satire is such an integral part of French society, it's controversial, it's provocative, it offends all religions, all political parties, nothing and nobody is spared.

"The satire is the counterbalance against power, it is a necessary part of the way French people, indeed free people around the world, see themselves and how they see the world." She said the shooting was "an attack on free people everywhere". "It was an assault on freedom of expression and freedom of speech – fundamental values that underpin every democratic society and that we hold dear; values that we stand up for, that we defend, that we're prepared to fight for." This year's exhibition did not single out a political cartoonist of the year and instead honoured the country's entire cartooning community in memory of the shooting. The display aimed to highlight the dangers of political cartooning, but also the power of political cartoonists to push social boundaries and question national policy.

It prompted Ms Bishop to joke to the crowd, which included Fairfax Media cartoonist Cathy Wilcox​ and The Guardian's First Dog on the Moon, that they couldn't argue the nation's politicians "weren't giving you enough material". Ms Bishop said Australia had a rich tradition of political satire and cartoons that stemmed from and irreverence for authority and social status and "a strong sense of what is right and fair". "Political cartoonists are an integral part of Australian society. Our democracy is so much the better, so much the greater because of their participation." Behind the Lines 2015: The year's best political cartoons is on at the Museum of Australian Democracy until November 2016.