Emotions ran high as a panel of arts industry professionals discussed the work and passing of controversial Australian cartoonist Bill Leak during Monday night's Q&A program.

The panellists condemned what an audience member described as some sections of the left wing celebrating Leak's death on Friday, but they also criticised his infamous 2016 cartoon depicting an Indigenous man with a beer can who could not remember his son's name.

The cartoon depicts Aboriginal people as bad role models, a community leader says. ( The Australian: Bill Leak )

The debate prompted a woman in the Q&A audience to shout "Bill Leak is a racist", before she was ejected from the venue.

Panellist, Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright, then declared Australia "a little far behind" on dealing with racial issues.

"I don't think he [Leak] would have gotten away with it in Canada," she said.

"I think there's something going on in this country where you're a little far behind.

"In North America there's some parallel histories, but that kind of stuff — those kind of drawings and satires — were given up a while ago."

Sorry, this video has expired Mem Fox and Martha Wainwright on Bill Leak

Fellow panellists, author Mem Fox, former media executive Kim Williams and theatre and opera director Neil Armfield praised Leak's body of work but agreed the 2016 cartoon was offensive.

Fox linked the argument to debates around free speech and political correctness.

"We are fighting for the right to be insulting and offensive. This is most odd," she said.

"Why would people want to be insulting and offensive? What is good in that? What good did hate ever do anybody? What country did hate make an improvement in?

"…There is another word for political correctness. And it is a simple word. It's called politeness."

Fellow panellist, Indigenous actress and singer Ursula Yovich said Leak's cartoon highlighted racism she and other Aboriginal people faced "on a day to day basis".

"I think if you have a platform as he did, you do have to have some kind of responsibility with what you put out there. I'm all for free speech," she said.

"…There's no limitation to what you can say but you do have a responsibility and you have to make amends if you're going to say something stupid or if you're going to say hateful things."

I will never go back to US: Fox

Prompted by an audience member and an earlier joking reference to her as an "international terror suspect", Fox also detailed her experience of being "interrogated" at a US airport, saying the security official was "absolutely terrifying and he humiliated me from the first sentence".

Sorry, this video has expired 'Interrogated, not interviewed': Mem Fox describes her American ordeal

"I was pulled out of line for a very small reason — the digital cameras didn't work and I was sent to a real person and that's where the trouble started," Fox said.

"And the real person found out I was being paid to give a speech in the States and said, 'You've come in on the wrong visa. You need to have more questions asked'.

"It was the way the questions were asked. It was the way they're trying to protect their borders. It was the insolence. It was the fear that they caused in me. It was the humiliation in a public room in which everything about my finances were shouted out to the entire room.

"It was the way other people in the room were treated which made me ashamed of being a human being. It was not only I who was badly treated. It was appalling."

She said she would never return to the US, arguing it "it wouldn't be safe for me to do so. I don't think I'd be allowed in".

Arts the heart of a nation: Williams

The role and value of the arts in Australia was a running theme throughout the program.

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During an emotional few moments, Yovich discussed her struggle working on the production of The Secret River — which depicts the deaths of Aboriginals at the hands of Europeans after colonisation — while racism continued and historical wounds remained raw.

"The pain and suffering of that past — that history is really strong in the collective mind of Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people go to more funerals, we go to more hospitals, and jails in a year than the average non-Aboriginal person," she said.

"And I just didn't want to immerse myself in a story when I felt like I was just immersed in it in life just for being Aboriginal.

"It was a hard one. I'm actually really proud of The Secret River, even though it was very difficult. I still stand by it and feel it's an important story to tell."

Armfield, who was the director, said working with the Indigenous children brought the realities of the story home.

"When I have to show a little eight-year-old boy how to walk across the stage, where the mark on the stage is where he must lie down because he's been killed, it makes me stop in a way that is, it's hard for everyone in the company," he said.

"…You're dealing with young people and you know that not so many generations ago their ancestors faced the gun in the way that this child is now enacting that action.

"And when that reality in the rehearsal room hits you, it is absolutely overwhelming."

Mr Williams warned Australia against ever underestimating the value of the arts.

"The arts are absolutely at the heartland of a nation's sense of self-confidence, a nation's view of itself, a nation's sense of its history as told through stories, through music, through painting, through film and through theatre," he said.

"And to in some ways see this as being entirely about commerce reflects what I think is one of the most dangerous things in modern life — where we treat money as the measure of all things, rather than one of many measures."