South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has said he does not support the Adelaide Festival Board’s invitation for Palestinian-Australian writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah to speak at the 2027 Adelaide Writers’ Week program after backlash from controversially removing her.
A week ago, it was revealed that the Festival rescinded its invitation to Dr Abdel-Fattah to speak at the 2026 program on the grounds of “cultural sensitivity” after the Bondi terror attacks, due to her “past statements”.
The Festival’s reasoning led 180 writers to withdraw from the 2026 Writers’ Week in protest over free speech. This, in turn, led to the event’s cancellation.
A number of Board members have also since resigned, including the writers’ week director, Louise Adler.
In response to the controversy and backlash, the Festival Board issued an ‘unreserved’ apology and offered a new invitation to Abdel-Fattah for its event next year.
On Thursday, SA Premier Malinauskas made comments that he did not support this offer from the Writing Festival towards Abdel-Fattah, who on Wednesday threatened to sue him for defamation over comments he made on Tuesday.
“The views that I put, I carefully thought through. I formed an opinion based on fact, the facts have now been proven, my principles haven’t changed and my views haven’t changed,” Malinauskas said about backing the previous Adelaide Festival Board’s decision to remove Dr Abdel-Fattah.
“Other people have changed their opinions but not me. I’m in favour of inclusivity, I’m in favour of consistency, making sure all voices are heard.”
The new Board’s apology to Dr Abdel-Fattah made it clear that the previous decision to remove her “fell well short” of its goal to uphold “intellectual and artistic freedom” as “a powerful human right”.
“We apologise to Dr Abdel-Fattah unreservedly for the harm the Adelaide Festival Corporation has caused her,” the apology said.
In a statement responding to the Festival, Dr Abdel-Fattah said she accepted the apology “as a vindication of our collective solidarity and mobilisation against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship.”
“I accept this unreserved apology as acknowledgement of the harm inflicted on our communities,” she said, adding that she’ll consider the Board’s invitation to participate in the 2027 event, “but would be there in a heartbeat if Louise Adler was the director again”.
On Thursday, Dr Abdel-Fattah confirmed that she would continue with her defamation case against Malinauskas. She said his previous comments describing her as “an extremist terrorist sympathiser”, in reference to the Bondi atrocity”, was a “vicious assault on [her]”.