Adelaide festival apologises to Randa Abdel-Fattah and invites her to participate in 2027 writers’ week | Adelaide festival

The new Adelaide Festival board has issued a public apology to Palestinian-Australian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah and promised to invite her to Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027.

Abdel Fattah immediately accepted the apology and shared on Instagram that it was a demonstration of “our collective solidarity and mobilization against anti-Palestinian racism, bullying and censorship.”

He said the board is still considering an invitation to participate in the 2027 event.

In a statement on Thursday morning, the Adelaide Festival Corporation acknowledged they had previously said they would exclude Abdel-Fattah from this year’s event “because it would be culturally insensitive to allow him to attend. We withdraw this statement.”

“We apologize unreservedly to Dr Abdel-Fattah for the harm caused to him by the Adelaide Festival Corporation. Intellectual and artistic freedom is a powerful human right. Our aim is to protect this, and in this case the Adelaide Festival Corporation has fallen far short.”

The apology came after former Macquarie Bank board member and former chief executive Tony Berg issued a statement to the media accusing former Adelaide Writers’ Week director Louise Adler and Abdel-Fattah of a “selective” and “completely hypocritical” commitment to freedom of expression.

Adler resigned on Tuesday over Abdel-Fattah’s cancellation, and later the same day the Adelaide Festival Corporation announced the 2026 writers festival had been cancelled.

But in a statement distributed by Berg this week, the Sydney businessman said he was “completely stunned” by Adler’s claim that he had resigned in the name of freedom of expression and by Abdel Fattah’s “anger at being cancelled”.

“When I observed that both of them were staunchly opposed to free speech during my time on the board, they both demonstrate hypocrisy in defending free speech for some,” he said, referring to the incident in which controversial New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was scheduled to appear in 2024 but did not do so.

Ten academics, including Abdel-Fattah, wrote to the festival board on February 6, 2024, demanding the cancellation of the invitation of Friedman, who days ago published a controversial column comparing the conflict in the Middle East to the animal kingdom.

The festival board responded in writing three days later, telling the lobbying academics that a request from the board to cancel an artist or writer was “extremely serious”.

“We have an international reputation for supporting freedom of artistic expression,” said the letter, signed by board chair Tracey Whiting.

“Thomas L Friedman was scheduled to contribute online from New York. However, I was told that due to last minute scheduling issues he will no longer be participating in this year’s program.”

“Adler has made a request to the board that Tom Friedman withdraw his invitation to attend the 2024 Adelaide Writers Week,” Berg said.

“Following Tom Friedman’s invitation to speak, Randa Abdel-Fattah led a group of scholars demanding that Tom Friedman be removed from the platform. Louise Adler, Ruth MacKenzie, and Kath Mainland then presented the Board with an ultimatum that they would resign if Friedman did not approve her recommendation to reject his invitation. In the face of this threat, the board felt it had no choice but to allow the withdrawal. [sic] Invitation to Friedman.”

Berg said he understands why some writers are like that. [more than 170] He turned down invitations to come to AWW 2026 on the grounds of freedom of expression.

“But they need to understand that the people they side with have actually actually undermined freedom of expression in the past,” he said.

“Unlike Adler and Abdel-Fattah, I support freedom of expression not on a selective basis, but with a variety of views presented in respectful dialogue.”

Adler responded to Berg’s allegations by accusing the former board member of violating board confidentiality.

“I consider the discussions around the board table to be confidential,” he said in a prepared statement.

“I am quite surprised that a former CEO of Macquarie Bank would violate that trust. It is indicative of the way the former board operated and I believe it will be a rich case study for future management students.”

Abdel-Fattah disputed Berg’s claims that he, along with Adler, led the charge to cancel Friedman.

“I was one of 10 Indigenous and non-white academics who wrote a researched letter with references and footnotes about the harm of racist tropes,” she told the Guardian.

“What’s missing from this is a power issue. We’re writing letters to boards through Google Docs. People who want to cancel us have intercessors.”

The Adelaide festival has been approached for comment.

Abdel-Fattah announced on Wednesday that he would be suing South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas for defamation over comments he made earlier this week.

Abdel-Fattah said he would continue his defamation case against Malinauskas on Thursday.

Since last Thursday, the South Australian premier has consistently denied any direct involvement and insisted the board was acting independently.

“However, when asked for my opinion, I was happy to make it clear that the state government did not support Dr Abdel-Fattah’s inclusion in the Adelaide writers’ week programme,” he said.

The Greens’ arts spokesman, Senator Hanson Young, said the prime minister should also apologize.

“Peter Malinauskas now also needs to apologize to Randa Abdel-Fattah, Louise Adler and the people of South Australia,” he said in a statement.