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A letter from South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas has been made public, displaying he strongly urged the Adelaide Pageant board to cancel Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah’s look on the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week.
Within the letter, written days earlier than her exclusion, the premier warned that the competition risked public ridicule and accusations of hypocrisy if it saved her on this system, particularly after the Bondi terror assault.
The board eliminated Ms Abdel-Fattah six days later and later cancelled all the occasion.
In a three-page letter to the board’s now former chair, Tracey Whiting, Mr Malinauskas detailed his causes for opposing Ms Abdel-Fattah’s inclusion.
“The battle between Israel and Palestine evokes exceptionally sturdy and polarising views and feelings,” the premier wrote within the letter.
“Freedom of speech is prime to Australia’s democratic society and any Australian is entitled to specific their views on this battle, together with their sturdy opposition and condemnation of the views or actions of concerned events. Nevertheless, I’m of the view that the statements and actions attributed to Dr Abdel-Fattah transcend affordable public debate.
“I’m shocked on the determination by Adelaide Writers’ Week to present a platform to this writer and deeply involved that the Board isn’t ready to take away her look from this system, significantly in mild of present circumstances, the nationwide temper and want for social cohesion following the Bondi terror assault.”
He acknowledged that the federal government wouldn’t hesitate to publicly criticise Ms Abdel-Fattah’s inclusion at Writers’ Week.
“I can even make it clear that I consider that the Board’s failure to take away Dr Abdel-Fattah from this system following the Bondi terror assault, can be opposite to the Board’s broader duty to the Adelaide Pageant and Adelaide Writers’ Week,” the premier wrote in a letter which was printed by
The Palestinian writer’s lawyer has described the premier’s intervention as coercive and disturbing, accusing him of undermining the board’s independence.
“Regardless of his repeated public protestations that he didn’t accomplish that, his letter is clearly coercive and would have left the Board feeling it had no alternative however to conform,” Michael Bradley mentioned in an announcement.
“Their independence apparently meant little to him, and it needs to be remembered that his authorities appoints the Board and supplies a lot of the Pageant’s funding.”
He additionally mentioned that the premier had “explicitly” linked Ms Abdel-Fattah to the Bondi terrorist assault even supposing she “had nothing to do with Bondi”, The Australian Broadcasting Company reported.
Final week, Ms Abdel-Fattah mentioned her legal professionals had issued a issues discover threatening defamation proceedings towards the South Australian premier, describing components of his commentary as a “vicious private assault”.
