‘Canary in the coalmine’: Writers’ Week director resigns over free speech
Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler has resigned, with scathing words of warning for fellow arts colleagues.
“Lobbying and political pressure” threatened to stifle free speech at the 2026 Adelaide Writers Week, event chief Louise Adler said in her resignation announcement on Tuesday morning.
She said the Adelaide Festival board’s decision to remove Sydney-born Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah had her “strongest opposition”, “weakens freedom of speech” and “is the harbinger of a less free nation, where lobbying and political pressure determine who gets to speak and who doesn’t”.
“Adelaide Writers’ Week is the canary in the coalmine. Friends and colleagues in the arts, beware of the future. They are coming for you,” she wrote.
Adler announced her resignation in an opinion piece for The Guardian published at 8am Adelaide time on Tuesday titled: “I cannot be party to silencing writers, which is why I am resigning as director of Adelaide Writers’ Week”.
“Many years ago the former premier Don Dunstan touted Adelaide as the ‘Athens of the south’. Now South Australia’s tourism slogan could be ‘Welcome to Moscow on the Torrens’,” she wrote.
SA Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has also criticised the decision, questioning political interference, asking “what would Don Dunstan say?”
“What would he say, to see South Australia’s arts community and reputation torn down by such political cowardice and shortsightedness,” Hanson-Young said.
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Adler compared the decision of the Adelaide Festival board to remove Abdel-Fattah from the lineup despite her opposition to McCarthyism – a campaign against alleged communists that repressed writers and others, led by US Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.
“Now religious leaders are to be policed, universities monitored, the public broadcaster scrutinised and the arts starved. Are you or have you ever been a critic of Israel? Joe McCarthy would be cheering on the inheritors of his tactics,” Adler wrote.
“In my view, boards composed of individuals with little experience in the arts, and blind to the moral implications of abandoning the principle of freedom of expression, have been unnerved by the pressure exerted by politicians calculating their electoral prospects and relentless, coordinated letter-writing campaigns.”
When asked about Adler’s resignation on Tuesday, Premier Peter Malinauskas said “I haven’t spoken Louise Adler once about this.”
“I have opened Writers’ Week. I’ve stood up for Writers’ Week. I’ve defended Louise Adler in the past,” Malinauskas said.
“I’ve done everything I can for this organisation as Premier. I’ve given a lot more money to the festival. But what they do and how they run themselves, that’s up to them.”
He has consistently denied political interference, saying he had “never intervened or directed the board, and nor should I, in fact, as a matter of law, I can’t” but that he made it clear he supported the decision to remove Abdel-Fattah.
Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah said it was a “tragedy” that it came to Adler’s resignation when asked about the announcement on ABC Radio Adelaide on Tuesday morning.
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“Louise is one of the most incredible directors and icons in Australia’s cultural history and she has done such amazing work in that role,” Abdel-Fattah said.
“What we have now is Louise Adler, a Jewish woman, an anti-Zionist Jewish woman who has had to resign and step down from this festival.
“It really shows you that in this moment her identity as a Jewish woman has been erased and this is an attack on me as a Palestinian and Louise Adler as an anti-Zionist Jewish woman.”
Abdel-Fattah said that she rejected any claims from the Adelaide Festival board, other media or groups that called for her removal and alleged she was antisemitic.
“I stand for the rights of all people,” Abdel-Fattah said.
“I stand for the principle that we are all equal, I stand for the rights of Jews, Palestinians, Muslims, everybody of every racial and religious group to live in.”
Adler’s resignation comes after 114 writers boycotted the event over Abdel-Fattah’s removal, including former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Ardern was due to appear at the premiere literary festival to be interviewed by ABC Reporter Sarah Ferguson – who also withdrew from the February event.
It was Ardern who was Prime Minister in March, 2019, when 51 Muslims were killed during Friday prayers after an Australian man opened fire on two Christchurch mosques. Dozens more were injured.
Her empathy, rejection of violent rhetoric, and swift action to ban almost all semi-automatic weapons in New Zealand was for many a defining moment of her leadership.
The lawyer for Abdel-Fattah said her removal from the lineup by the Adelaide Festival Board –which claimed it would be “culturally insensitive” to program her so soon after the Bondi shooting – was “morally indefensible”.
The Adelaide Festival was contacted for comment about Adler’s resignation.
In a statement on Monday, Adelaide Festival Corporation Executive Director Julian Hobba said the festival would share further updates on the “unprecedented” situation as soon as it can.
“Following the Adelaide Festival Board’s decision on Thursday 8 January and the significant community response, Adelaide Writers’ Week and Adelaide Festival are navigating a complex and unprecedented moment and will share further updates as soon as we are able,” Hobba said.
