Adelaide (QNN)- Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has become the latest figure to withdraw from the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week in protest over the Adelaide Festival board’s decision to remove Palestinian-Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah. More than 70 participants have also withdrawn from next month’s festival events
Ardern had been scheduled to discuss her memoir A Different Kind of Power with the ABC’s host of 7.30, Sarah Ferguson, on 3 March.
The journalist Daniela Ritorto, the Adelaide businesswoman Donny Walford and the lawyer Nick Linke also stepped down at an extraordinary board meeting on Saturday following the board’s decision.
Separately on Sunday evening, festival board chair Tracey Whiting confirmed that she had decided to resign, “effective immediately”.
She did not detail her reasons for resigning, saying only in a statement: “Recent decisions were bound by certain undertakings and my resignation enables the Adelaide Festival, as an organisation, to refresh its leadership and its approach to these circumstances.”
“My tenure as Chair has been immensely enjoyable, as has working with the terrific AF team. I look forward to the future success of the Adelaide Festival,” she added in the post on LinkedIn.
Ardern joins a growing list of international writers and commentators who have decided to boycott the event, along with more than 70 participants over the removal of Abdel-Fattah from its lineup over the Bondi attack, despite her having no link to the incident.
Bestselling author Zadie Smith, Pulitzer prize-winning writer Percival Everett, Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, Irish novelist Roisín O’Donnell and Russian American journalist M Gessen have all confirmed their withdrawal in recent days.
According to Daily Mail, 100 of 124 writers programmed have withdrawn from the high-profile literary festival, which runs from February 28-March 5, in response to the board’s move.
The festival covers arts, music, talks and theatre and includes Adelaide’s annual Writers’ Week next month, where Abdel-Fattah was due to appear for the second time after hosting a number of panels and sessions in 2023.
In a Thursday statement, the festival’s board said it had been “shocked and saddened by the tragic events at Bondi” and the “significant heightening of both community tensions and the community debate”.
“As the Board responsible for the Adelaide Festival organisation and all Adelaide Writers’ Week events, staff, volunteers and participants, we have today advised scheduled writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah that the Board has formed the judgment that we do not wish to proceed with her scheduled appearance at next month’s Writers’ Week,” it added.
Within hours of the board’s announcement, Abdel-Fattah issued her own statement, slamming the festival board’s “blatant and shameless anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.” She said the board’s attempt to associate her with the Bondi massacre was “despicable”.
“The Adelaide Writers Festival Board has stripped me of my humanity and agency, reducing me to an object onto which others can project their racist fears and smears,” she added.
“The Board’s reasoning suggests that my mere presence is ‘culturally insensitive’; that I, a Palestinian who had nothing to do with the Bondi atrocity, am somehow a trigger for those in mourning and that I should therefore be persona non grata in cultural circles because my very presence as a Palestinian is threatening and ‘unsafe’.”
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Abdel-Fattah also took aim at Australian arts and cultural institutions in general, accusing them of displaying “utter contempt and inhumanity towards Palestinians” since 7 October 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.
“The only Palestinians they will tolerate are silent and invisible ones,” she said.
The board said while it did not suggest “in any way” that Abdel-Fattah or her writings had any connection with the tragedy at Bondi, it claimed that the decision was made “given her past statements”.
“We have formed the view that it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi,” it said.
“We understand these Board decisions will likely be disappointing to many in our community. We also recognise our request to Dr Abdel-Fattah will be labelled and will cause discomfort and pressure to other participants. These decisions have not been taken lightly.”
“Our only request is that our community is respectful to our staff and volunteers who have not formed part of our decision-making process and deserve nothing but ongoing support for their excellent work.”
Abdel-Fattah said she was confident that the writing community and public would respond with “principle and integrity, as they did when I was singled out in the same racist way during the Bendigo Writers Festival”.
“In the end, the Adelaide Writers Festival will be left with panellists who demonise a Palestinian out of one side of their mouths while waxing lyrical about freedom of speech from the other.”
By Thursday afternoon, statements of withdrawal from fellow writers and sponsors started appearing.
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The Australia Institute announced the withdrawal of its sponsorship for the 2026 event, which in the past had “promoted bravery, freedom of expression and the exchange of ideas”, it said in a statement.
“Censoring or cancelling authors is not in the spirit of an open and free exchange of ideas.”
A former director of Adelaide Writers’ Week, Jo Dyer, posted on Bluesky that she was “appalled” at the Adelaide festival board’s decision – “a shocking decision that will and should have far-reaching consequences”.
The Stella prize-winning poet Evelyn Araluen was one of the first writers to publicly withdraw.
The Dropbear and The Rot author said the board’s decision was a “devastating betrayal’ of the democratic ethos that has defined the festival.
“I am so disappointed to witness yet another absurd and irrational capitulation to the demands of a genocidal foreign state from the Australian arts sector,” she posted on Instagram.
“Erasing Palestinians from public life in Australia won’t prevent anti semitism. Removing Palestinians from writers festivals won’t prevent anti semitism. I refuse to participate in this spectacle of censorship.”
Abdel-Fattah had faced sustained criticism for her pro-apalestine, anti-genocide comments.
The Adelaide-based publisher Pink Shorts Press said it “strongly condemns” the removal of Abdel-Fattah from programming and was now considering whether it would continue its collaboration with the festival.
Last year, Abdel-Fattah was among about 30 participants who pulled out of the Bendigo writers’ festival after it issued a last-minute code of conduct that one said requires “complete self-censorship” over Israel’s war in Gaza.
On Sunday, the Sydney legal firm Marque, acting on behalf of Abdel-Fattah, wrote to Whiting, demanding she provide each and every statement made by the academic that had played a part in the board’s decision to axe her from the 2026 program.
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“Your letter notified Dr Abdel-Fattah of the board’s decision to exclude her from participating as a speaker at Adelaide Writers Week in 2026,” said the letter, from Marque’s managing partner, Michael Bradley.
“Your letter was the first indication she received that her participation was in question. There was no communication or consultation of any kind with her prior to the decision to exclude her.”
Bradley said the notification his client received from the board had provided no reason for its decision other than “it would not be culturally sensitive to proceed with [her] scheduled appearance”.
But in the public statement it issued on Thursday, Bradley noted, the board said it was her past statements that had informed the board’s decision that it would be culturally insensitive to allow her participation, so soon after the Bondi terror attack.
“As a matter of basic procedural fairness to Dr Abdel-Fattah, please identify with specificity, each of the past statements made by her on which the board relied in making the decision,” the legal letter said.
“She is entitled to this information.”
The board was given until 14 January to respond, along with a request to Whiting and her diminished board to retain all documents relating to the matter, for the purposes of possible litigation.
