An Australian cartoonist has reportedly been placed under police protection after publishing a derogatory picture of the Prophet Mohammed on his website.

Larry Pickering was visited by Queensland Police detectives on Sunday and told he had upset a lot of people with the cartoon and was being placed under high-priority protective surveillance.

• Charlie Hebdo: a history of controversy
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“I guess they must have picked up some intelligence or chatter after I did the cartoon,” Mr Pickering told News Corp Australia.

The cartoonist is a controversial figure who was criticised by former prime minister Julia Gillard in 2012 over “repulsive” depictions of her on his “vile and sexist” website.

Meanwhile, Australian right-wing think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, is reiterating its call for more free speech.

The IPA wants the Abbott government to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in the wake of the deadly terror attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Simon Breheny, director of the IPA’s Legal Rights Project, says Charlie Hebdo would struggle to survive in Australia due to laws that censor offensive, insulting, humiliating and intimidating speech.

Content not caught by section 18C would almost certainly be censored by current state religious vilification laws, which are specifically designed to target the kind of content published in Charlie Hebdo, he said.

But Greens Senator Richard Di Natale says Australia’s racial discrimination laws don’t prevent publication of offensive material based on religion.

He says Section 18C would not prevent the publication of Charlie Hebdo-style cartoons in Australia, and it was wrong to link the Paris attacks to free speech issues in Australia.

“We’re seeing some people seeking to exploit what is a human tragedy for their own political purposes,” Dr Di Natale told reporters in Melbourne.

“Section 18C does not prevent people from expressing a view on the basis of religion, even if that view causes offence to other people.”

– with AAP