Crisis communications expert Peter Wilkinson takes a look at a festival that ran aground on hypocrisy and a lack of organisational solidarity
AWW director Louise Adler (Jewish Council of Australia)
The recent cancellation of the Adelaide Writer’s Week (AWW), and resignation and reinstatement of its Director – Louise Adler – is confusing for most Australians.
It started when a Sydney academic and Palestine activist, Randa Abdel-Fattah, was disinvited from the AWW by the Adelaide Festival Corporation Board having originally been invited by Louise Adler; 180 writers dropped out of the festival in protest, Adler resigned, Abdel-Fattah threatened to sue SA Premier Peter Malinauskas for defamation, the 2026 AWW was cancelled, the Board apologised to Abdel-Fattah (unreservedly), invited her to the 2027 AWW, and Adler was reinstated by the AF Corporation as Director.
At issue were Abdel-Fattah’s anti-Israel statements issued online, and her posting of a picture of a paratrooper in Palestinian colours (later retracted) referring to Hamas’ attack on Israel in 2023. The Adelaide Festival Corporation, and the financial backer of the AWW – the South Australian government – did not want her views aired in the wake of the 2025 Bondi terror attack that claimed 15 lives.
A professional perspective
It’s been a schemozzle. From a communications perspective, there have been mistakes throughout this fiasco that can serve as a guide for those who have to make decisions about communications in their daily lives.
1: The Board is King
Its job, legally and best practice, is to act in the best interest of the owners. The Adelaide Festival, including AWW, is owned by the Adelaide Festival Corporation.
Louise Adler is the outspoken director of Writer’s Week, who resigned loudly over this brawl. That’s a no-no. Her role, along with her fellow directors, is to form a collective view. Directors can argue their case behind closed doors, but once a decision is made, outwardly officeholders must bury their personal views in the interest of the organisation. This is a common challenge, for instance, when the board is a mix of company executives and union officials.
Throwing a hissy fit and speaking out when you don’t get your way simply damages reputations all around. Resigning quietly is an option, and a principled stand often carries more weight than words.
2: Free Speech? Was it good for Democracy?
Abdel-Fattah and writers who boycotted the AWW framed the disinvitation of Abdel-Fattah as a breach of “free speech”. However, the freedom to speak is not the right to a stage.
The US Bill of Rights’ First Amendment is a great template for this. It states that the US Congress can make no law that infringes upon the freedom to worship, freedom to speak, a free press, freedom to assemble (protest) or to petition the government.
It encapsulates so many powerful ideas in so few words that, to an amateur like me, these foundational freedoms are a guide to what makes a strong democracy.
In a crisis, I urge clients to assess Australia’s valuable ‘freedom of speech’ in terms of whether what they want to say strengthens or weakens our democracy. If your words weaken democracy (in this case, by hurting or intimidating others), think carefully of the consequences.
Just because you can say something, should you?
3: Hypocrisy
Here’s how it looks in my opinion. A small group were pushing a narrow, divisive agenda, didn’t get their way, and reached for a higher principle – free speech.
Only to be caught out.
A mistake for communicators is not thinking things through, strategically and critically.
In this case, in the wake of Abdel-Fattah’s disinvitation and Adler’s resignation, we learned that Adler and Abdel-Fattah had taken part in the disinvitation of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman from the 2024 AWW. We also learned that Abdel-Fattah had participated (even if passively) in the doxxing of an Australian Jewish creatives’ group on WhatsApp, resulting in the loss of work for some of those creatives.
The charge of hypocrisy is a poor result for people reaching for the high ground.
The author – Peter Wilkinson
4: Good listening
Good communicators do more listening than talking, and poorly-performing organisations often fail because the leaders don’t understand this. The aftermath of the Bondi massacre was poor timing to go public with this spat.
From a communications perspective, with forethought, an option for AWW might have been simply balancing Abdel-Fattah’s appearance with a writer arguing an opposing perspective. There are many, including Australian Jewish writers, who could have fulfilled this role.
The free speech principle – tempered with civility – seems to be captured by that other democracy-strengthening phrase: “I may not like what you say, but I’ll defend your right to say it.”
5: Don’t start with hate
I have never seen a successful comms strategy that starts with recrimination or disrespect.
Even in politics, the wisdom is to attack the message, not the messenger. Vilifying a group of people might gain support inside a small bubble of like-mindeds, but it falls flat in the broader community.
6: And the winner is?
South Australian Premier, Peter Malinauskas, who sent a letter to the Adelaide Festival Board on 2 January 2026, before the Bondi massacre, asking for Abdel-Fattah to be disinvited. Malinauskas’ letter is clear, shows commitment to values and demonstrates leadership.
His delineation between “freedom of speech” and “speech that is insulting, racist in any form, promotes religious discrimination or hate speech” could define what most Australians think of free speech.
Sometimes, clear communication and strong leadership look like the same thing.