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Chief Editorial Cartoonist at The Australian Johannes Leak says “political correctness is a force that is trying to contain and restrict your expression”, adding the Aussie larrikin spirit has been “pushed back against”.

The Sky News Australia special 'The Death of the Aussie Larrikin?' has investigated the plight of political correctness in Australia's public discourse and what it means for comedy and satire.

The special’s host Rowan Dean travelled to the NSW Central Coast gallery of Johannes Leak, son of the late Bill Leak, reflecting on some of Bill's most incisive works.

Mr Dean asked Mr Leak if political correctness had killed his father Bill, who died suddenly from a suspected heart attack in 2017.

“No but let’s just say my dad carried a lot of stress but I don’t think he’d ever carried that much stress before because trust me there are people out there who, it was more than satisfaction, when they heard about my dad dying,” Mr Leak said.

“The voices on Twitter, they were out there cheering.”

Bill Leak in the beginning of his career was considered a “larrikin of the Left but in his later years his politics changed," according to Mr Dean.

“Somewhere along the line the Left became censorious, the Left stopped laughing, they got really worried about what you could and couldn’t laugh about,” Mr Leak told Sky News.

“They embraced identify politics, they embraced political correctness.”

Watch the full Sky News Australia special 'The Death of the Aussie Larrikin?' now streaming on Foxtel Go.