Writer Abdel-Fattah launches legal action against Premier
UPDATED: Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah has launched defamation proceedings against the Premier, saying his comments about her Writers’ Week cancellation “terrified” her. Malinaukas responds.
Lawyers for Sydney-born Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah on Wednesday launched defamation proceedings against Premier Peter Malinauskas.
In a statement to social media, Abdel-Fattah announced her lawyers had issued a concerns notice to Malinauskas under the defamation act.
The writer said her action comes after a week of the Premier making “many public statements” about her character.
“We have never met and he has never attempted to contact me,” Abdel-Fattah said.
“He knows nothing about me, beyond what he has been told by the Murdoch press and the pro-Israel lobby, which he has apparently accepted without question”.
Her statement said that on Tuesday, “Malinauskas went even further”.
“He made a public statement that suggested I am an extremist terrorist sympathiser and directly linked me to the Bondi atrocity. This was a vicious personal assault on me, a private citizen, by the highest public official in South Australia. It was defamatory and it terrified me.
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“Enough is enough. I am a human being, not a punching bag. My lawyers have today issued a concerns notice under the Defamation Act on Premier Malinauskas. This is his opportunity to undo some of the harm he has inflicted, and stop punching down.”
The action comes after Abdel-Fattah was removed from the Writers’ Week lineup by the Adelaide Festival board on January 8.
Abdel-Fattah’s lawyers have also written to former Adelaide Festival board chair Tracey Whiting, requesting further documentation about their decision and flagging their intention to begin proceedings.
“Please ensure that your organisation and each individual member of the board retains all documents in their possession (including emails, text messages and content on disappearing messaging apps) that relate to the decision to exclude Dr Abdel-Fattah,” the letter from Abdel-Fattah’s lawyers to Whiting said, which she shared to social media platform X earlier this week.
“You are each now on notice that these documents may be required for the purposes of litigation.”
Malinauskas has been vocal about his opinion shared with the former Adelaide Festival board – all members but one have now resigned – that Abdel-Fattah should be removed from the February lineup.
The Premier 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”.
At a press conference on Wednesday morning, the Premier said he was not aware if a concerns notice had been received.
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When asked about the proceedings and if he thought he owed Abdel-Fattah an apology, the Premier told journalists, “you saw what I said, and not just what I said, everything that I’ve been saying”.
“Throughout the entirety of this, my only motivation and all the words that I’ve spoken have come from a place of the desire for people to treat each other civilly, with compassion, in the interests of humanity more broadly and seeing that within one another and people will be able to judge my remarks for themselves when they see them,” Malinauskas said.
“I’ve been pretty clear about all this, and I’ve said everything I possibly can. I’ve been very transparent about my views of things, and the board has made independent decisions of themselves.”
When asked if he would have done anything differently, the Premier said: “I thought about that, and knowing a lot of detail and a lot of context….I feel as if I had no choice but to form the view that I did”.
“I’ve answered every question that’s been asked of me. I’ve been transparent about my actions, from the absolute get-go, when others ran for cover. I let people know my views and the ways in which I express them and the reason for which I’ve expressed them, pursuing this idea of compassion and humanity being at the centre of any judgments that have ever been made.”
Writers’ Week was cancelled by the Adelaide Festival Board on Tuesday after 180 writers withdrew in support of Abdel-Fattah, and director Louise Adler resigned. All but one board member resigned at the time of the cancellation, with four new board members being appointed by the government shortly after.
When the Premier was asked on Wednesday if he was concerned about the economic hit the state will face through the loss of Writers Week, he said “because the Adelaide Writers’ Week is a free event, it is not a ticketed event, it generates zero revenue. So no, not just at this stage.”
According to the now-defunct programme, the 2026 Writers’ Week included a range of ticketed events, including appearances by international authors Tina Brown, Christiane Amanpour, Michael Lewis, Emily Maitlis, and Jacinda Ardern, with tickets starting at $40.
Writers’ Week had a record-breaking 160,000 attendances in 2025 – the event’s 40th year – over the six days.
The Adelaide Festival’s 2025 Impact Report showed it generated $62.6 million in gross expenditure for South Australia, spent by the 365,402 total attendees in the state.
Greens Leader Robert Simms said the latest development was “an opportunity for the Premier to apologise and reflect”.
“His meddling set off a chain reaction, and he needs to accept responsibility,” Simms said.
Simms called for the state government to provide a support package for the arts following the event’s cancellation.
He said there would be a “significant” financial impact and wanted to see the package target arts workers, small businesses and the tourism sector that are “out of work and out of pocket” after the cancellation.
