The Adelaide Festival Board is appointed by the SA Government to oversee the Adelaide Festival of Arts. Writer’s Week is normally organised and conducted by the Adelaide Writers’ Week Committee under its Director, currently Louise Adler. The Writers’ Week Committee is a committee under the Board.

 

Adler and her committee do not support the axing of Abdel-Fatteh. But they have been over-ridden by the Festival Board.

 

The Festival Board appointees represent capitalist commercial and financial interests.

 

According to its website, its members are:

 

• Tracey Whiting, Chair of the Board and a Director of Solstice Media, which owns Indaily, the online alternative to Murdoch’s The Advertiser. She has a background in marketing.

• Leesa Chesser, who as Leesa Vlahos was a SA Labor Minister. Vlahos was the founding director of SA Progressive Business Inc. which acts as Labor's corporate events arm linking them with the business community. She has publicly advocated for nuclear energy.

• Mary Couros, Councillor for the North Ward of the City of Adelaide. She owns and operates multiple businesses located in North Adelaide, particularly in the real estate industry.

• Brenton Cox, Managing Director of Adelaide Airport. Described as having extensive executive leadership experience in business and finance, including having worked for Macquarie Capital in London.

• Nicholas Linke, a Director and Partner of law firm Dentons Australia Ltd.

• Daniela Ritorto, former ABC and SBS journalist, married to SA Labor federal Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler. She returned to Adelaide in 2018 and was the media and communications manager for fossil fuel company Santos Limited. She now runs her own consultancy.

• Donny Walford, CEO of public unlisted companies and various strategic boards in the Finance, Defence and Government industry sectors with specific expertise in strategy, finance, strategic marketing and building businesses. 

 

Such is the class composition of the Board which ensures the ideological hegemony of the bourgeoisie over the Adelaide Festival.

 

And these are the people who have banned Abdel-Fatteh from Writers’ Week on the outrageous grounds that her views would reflect “cultural insensitivity” towards the Jewish community in the wake of the Bondi massacre!

 

Needless to say, SA Premier MalinAUKUS has publicly backed the Festival Board, saying that he supports the decision of the Adelaide Festival Board, and did not support the inclusion of Abdel-Fattah in the writers' festival line-up.

 

As a party of capitalism, SA Labor is adding fuel to the fire of reactionary and authoritarian condemnation of the Palestinian cause and its alleged anti-Semitism.

 

The Director of Adelaide Writers’ Week, Louise Adler, is a prominent anti-Zionist and a member of the anti-Zionist Jewish Council of Australia. In 2023, attempts were made to ban Palestinian American novelist and scholar Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd from Writers’ Week.  Adler refused to cancel their attendance, and both subsequently spoke at their scheduled sessions.

 

Political interference by and for Zionist supporters of the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank in this year’s Writers’ Week must be defeated.  Intending audiences for Writers’ Week must boycott this year’s event and join the courageous and principled writers who have withdrawn.

 

Despite many people’s long-standing attendance at, and commitment to, Writers’ Week, it is necessary to draw the line this time in order to save its integrity and freedom in the future.

 

Postscript (12 Jan 2026):  In the wake of the controversy over the Adelaide Festival Board's decision to axe Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, the Chair and three Board members have submitted their resignations. Chair Tracey Whiting, and Board members Daniela Ritorto, Donny Walford and Nicholas Linke have resigned. The political complicity of SA Premier MalinAUKUS is now clearer too, following revelations that he had told the Board that in his opinion ("it was not a directive") that Abdel-Fattah should be removed from Writers' Week prior to their decsion having been made.

 

Further Updates (13 Jan 2026): Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler has resigned, with scathing words of warning for fellow arts colleagues.
See this report from Adelaide's InDaily.