Can a quest for social harmony actually destroy it? That's the chilling question at the heart of the Adelaide Writers' Week debacle of 2026. What began as a seemingly minor disagreement over programming exploded into a full-blown cultural crisis, leaving the festival in ruins.
Imagine this: A prestigious literary event, a cornerstone of Australian culture, completely implodes in a matter of days. That's precisely what happened in Adelaide, the "city of churches," culminating in the cancellation of the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) and a shocking institutional collapse.
The initial spark? A quiet disagreement, a behind-the-scenes murmur. But by Wednesday morning, it had morphed into a ferocious, six-day war fought with words, resignations, legal threats, and accusations of racism and hypocrisy hurled from every direction. The departure of Louise Adler, the Writers’ Week director, was the tipping point, triggering a global boycott by writers, commentators, and academics, leaving the state’s premier cultural event a mere shadow of its former self. Adler, in her resignation, stated she could not be “party to silencing writers.”
This cancellation might just be the beginning. The fallout has set the stage for a potential Supreme Court showdown between South Australia's Premier, Peter Malinauskas, and Randa Abdel-Fattah, a prominent Palestinian Australian academic. Abdel-Fattah, whose invitation to the 2026 event was rescinded less than two weeks prior, is now at the center of the storm. But here's where it gets controversial... The crux of the legal battle lies in the Premier's now-infamous "Bondi analogy," a statement that even some of his allies admit may have finally damaged his previously unblemished reputation.
The seeds of this dramatic collapse were actually planted months earlier, in October, with the resignation of Tony Berg, a heavyweight in the business world (former managing director of Macquarie Bank and Boral) and a significant benefactor of the festival. While his resignation seemed discreet, his letter to the festival's board and the South Australian government painted a picture of a board allegedly held captive by an unyielding artistic director.
Berg, identifying himself as a Zionist and a governor of the Israel Australia Chamber of Commerce, accused the festival's leadership of promoting a “blatantly one-sided” agenda, sacrificing open debate for a “vendetta against Israel and Zionism.” He claimed that Adler had consistently failed to ensure balance in her programming since her appointment in 2022, effectively “spewing anti-Zionism” through her speaker selections. Abdel-Fattah's controversial Instagram post, declaring that “Zionists have no claim or right to cultural safety” shortly after the outbreak of conflict in Gaza, proved to be the last straw for Berg. He considered her inclusion in the 2026 lineup a final “travesty,” arguing that it crossed the line from legitimate political criticism into antisemitism.
Adding fuel to the fire, and this is the part most people miss..., Guardian Australia reported on a leaked letter revealing that Jewish New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, had been disinvited from the 2024 program, allegedly due to scheduling conflicts. Berg issued a statement accusing Adler and Abdel-Fattah of a “selective” and “utterly hypocritical” approach to free speech, claiming they spearheaded the effort to de-platform Friedman because of a controversial column comparing the Middle East conflict to the animal kingdom. Berg alleged that Adler and the festival’s leadership issued the board a comply-or-resign ultimatum to force Friedman’s withdrawal, an irony that Berg noted was seemingly lost on the authors boycotting the festival. Adler responded by attacking Berg’s integrity as a board member but has neither confirmed nor denied issuing an ultimatum.
Abdel-Fattah disputes the claim that she, along with Adler, led the charge to cancel Friedman. However, she admits to being one of ten Indigenous individuals and academics of color “who wrote a researched letter with references and footnotes about the harm of racial tropes.” Her response? “We write letters on Google Docs to boards. The people who want to cancel us have premiers intervening.”
Since last Thursday, Premier Malinauskas has vehemently denied any direct interference, insisting that the board acted independently. He pointed to his 2023 defense of the festival, when he resisted calls to withdraw funding over a different group of Palestinian writers, as proof of his commitment to artistic autonomy. However, he has acknowledged lobbying for Abdel-Fattah’s removal from the Writers’ Week around Christmas, engaging in “a number” of conversations with the board chair and ultimately writing a letter to the board on January 2nd, explicitly “advocating” his viewpoint. According to political observers on the ground, the evidence of political interference is undeniable. The Premier's office effectively saturated the local press with concerns about “security and harmony,” ensuring that Abdel-Fattah's removal was perceived as a public safety measure rather than a politically motivated attack.
Amidst the national mourning following the Bondi terrorist attack, the festival's board and the South Australian government quietly conducted a “cultural safety audit,” reaching its conclusion between Christmas and New Year. The board disregarded concerns raised by Adler, but she wasn't alone. Julian Hobba, the festival's executive director, warned the board during multiple meetings about the inevitable fallout from removing a writer based on their strong political views, especially with the Venice Biennale and Bendigo Writers’ Festival debacles still fresh in public memory. Despite these warnings, the board proceeded, setting off a chain reaction.
Abdel-Fattah responded swiftly, denouncing the decision as an act of “blatant and shameless” anti-Palestinian racism and censorship. She deemed the board's attempt to associate her with the Bondi massacre as “despicable.” The Australia Institute, a prominent progressive think tank, immediately withdrew its partnership and sponsorship, triggering a global literary revolt. By the time former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed her withdrawal on Monday, over 70 literary figures had already announced their boycott of the 2026 event. Among them were renowned authors like Zadie Smith, Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett, economist Yanis Varoufakis, journalist M Gessen, and Australian stars Helen Garner, Melissa Lucashenko, and Michelle de Kretser. At least as many other participants quietly informed AWW or Adelaide Festival management of their withdrawal. Behind the scenes, festival organizers were reportedly begging the British band Pulp, led by Jarvis Cocker, not to formally cancel their contract to perform at the festival's free opening night concert.
The Premier's message of social cohesion was lost amidst an international uproar. Adler retreated to her home, ignoring media inquiries and drafting her resignation manifesto.
On Saturday morning, the board convened for crisis management. One person present described it as “not enjoyable,” a significant understatement. An open letter from Rob Brookman, a respected figure in the SA arts scene and former executive and artistic director of the Adelaide Festival, demanding Abdel-Fattah's immediate reinstatement, was presented. The letter was signed by prominent figures from past festivals, including Neil Armfield, Peter Sellars, Jim Sharman, and Anthony Steel. By Monday, the list had grown to 17, including Stephen Page and Robyn Archer. The exodus began at the meeting's end. Nicholas Linke, a senior partner at the law firm Dentons, and the board's legal expert, was the first to leave. He was followed by Donny Walford, the founding director of the leadership and coaching company Behind Closed Doors, and Daniela Ritorto, a former BBC journalist and wife of federal health minister Mark Butler. Tracey Whiting, the chair, resigned at the meeting's conclusion.
On Sunday, unaware that the board was now inquorate (lacking the minimum number of members to conduct business), Abdel-Fattah's legal team at Marque Lawyers sent a letter challenging the “cultural sensitivity” grounds used to justify her removal, demanding her immediate reinstatement and an apology for the “malicious” characterization of her views as a threat to community safety.
With no functioning board and a growing list of boycotting authors, Adler announced her resignation in The Guardian Australia on Tuesday morning. “I cannot be party to silencing writers,” she wrote, describing the board’s capitulation as a “terminal betrayal” of the festival’s mandate. She stated that the pressure to self-censor had made her position “utterly untenable.” By the end of the day, the Adelaide Festival Corporation pulled the plug, canceling the 2026 Writers’ Week before it even began. A new, skeleton board was announced, ironically including Brookman, one of the board's most vocal critics.
Standing amidst the wreckage on Tuesday, Premier Malinauskas delivered his now-infamous “Bondi analogy.” To justify Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion, he asked the media: “Can you imagine if a far-right Zionist walked into a Sydney mosque and murdered 15 people? Can you imagine that as the premier of this state, I would actively support a far-right Zionist going to writers’ week and speaking hateful rhetoric towards Islamic people? Of course I wouldn’t, but the reverse has happened in this instance.”
By Wednesday morning, as the festival corporation emailed patrons promising refunds, another letter from Marque was sent. Signed by Michael Bradley, the firm’s managing partner, it was a show cause notice to the Premier himself over alleged defamation. On Instagram, Abdel-Fattah accused Malinauskas of going even further than previous statements supporting her removal by linking her to the Bondi atrocity and suggesting, by way of analogy, that she was “an extremist terrorist sympathiser.”
The new board met twice the day after it was formed. Led by Judy Potter, a veteran arts administrator and institutional fixer for the SA government, it voted to publicly apologize to Abdel-Fattah and promise her a slot at the next year’s AWW. As for this year’s event, they deemed it “tragically irretrievable.”
Abdel-Fattah accepted the apology but isn't finished with the Premier. “There is an extraordinary imbalance and abuse of power here,” she said, adding: “I’m fed up with the vicious bullying and lies about me.”
When asked if he had gone too far with his Bondi remarks, the Premier remained unrepentant: “My only motivation has come from a place of a desire for people to treat each other civilly with compassion, in the interest of humanity more broadly,” he said.
That such concern for humanity has resulted in the silencing of one of the country’s premier platforms for intellectual discourse suggests a new, more cautious era for a state that, since the Don Dunstan era, has prided itself on leading Australia in all that is radical and provocative. The city of churches, it seems, has proven to be no sanctuary for free speech or difficult ideas. Instead, it has become a place where the rowdy pursuit of social cohesion has ended in the absolute quiet of a cancelled festival.
Here's a question to ponder: Did the pursuit of safety and social cohesion ultimately stifle the very voices that needed to be heard? Was the Premier's analogy a necessary evil to protect the community, or did it cross a line? And what does this whole saga say about the future of free speech in Australia's cultural landscape? Share your thoughts in the comments below – agreement, disagreement, or anything in between. Let's talk.
