Cancelled Adelaide Writers’ Week academic Randa Abdel-Fattah suing South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas

Cancelled Adelaide Writers’ Week academic Randa Abdel-Fattah is suing South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas for defamation, claiming he had insinuated she supported terrorism.

Dr Abdel-Fattah, a Macquarie University sociologist, announced the launching of legal proceedings on Wednesday, a day after the annual literary festival was cancelled for 2026, as her disinvitation sparked the resignation of director Louise Adler and the board, with 180 writers withdrawing in sympathy.

“My lawyers have today issued a concerns notice under the Defamation Act on Premier Malinauskas,” she said on X.

“This is his opportunity to undo some of the harm he has inflicted, and stop punching down.”

The South Australian Labor Leader had backed the Adelaide Festival board’s decision on Thursday last week to drop Dr Abdel-Fattah from the program, in light of her anti-Israel social media posts and the aftermath of the Bondi Beach terrorist attack that killed 15 innocent people.

“For the past week since I was cancelled by the Adelaide Festival board, the South (Australian) Premier Peter Malinauskas has made many public statements about me and my character,” Dr Abdel-Fattah said.

“We have never met and he has never attempted to contact me.”

Mr Malinauskas was tearful on Tuesday when asked about the cancellation of Adelaide Writers’ Week.

“I do my best to examine my conscience and offer a view that I believe is consistent with the interest of compassion, in advancing the cause of people treating each other with decency and humanity, regardless of their background,” the Premier told reporters. “It’s genuinely what I try to do.”

But Dr Abdel-Fattah suggested he had made reflections about her character.

“Yesterday, Mr Malinauskas went even further. He made a public comment that suggested I am an extremist terrorist sympathiser and directly linked me to the Bondi atrocity,” she said.

“This was a vicious personal assault on me, a private citizen, by the highest public official in South Australia. It was defamatory and it terrified me.”

Dr Abdel-Fattah’s lawyer Michael Bradley, the managing partner of Marque Lawyers, confirmed a concerns notice had been issued.

“Our client has not commenced court proceedings. We have issued a concerns notice to Premier Malinauskas, which is a statutory requirement under the Defamation Act before proceedings can be commenced,” he told The Nightly.

The Adelaide Festival board had last week justified dropping Dr Abdel-Fattah in the interests of being “culturally sensitive” even though it acknowledged her writings did not “have any connection with the tragedy at Bondi”.

“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 then.

Dr Abdel-Fattah on Tuesday refused to accept the Adelaide Festival Corporation’s apology, after it announced the cancellation of Writers’ Week and a new board.

“It is disingenuous. It adds insult to injury. It is clear that the board’s regret extends to how the message of my cancellation was conveyed, not the decision itself,” she said.

Mr Malinauskas last week told the ABC that Dr Abdel-Fattah had written to the Adelaide Festival Corporation in 2024 protesting at the presence of pro-Israel Jewish-American author Thomas Friedman, who ultimately withdrew because of scheduling reasons.

“In that instance the board made a decision to remove that pro-Israeli speaker,” Mr Malinauskas told the ABC on Friday last week.

“Fast forward to where we are today and now Dr Abdel-Fattah finds herself (subject) to the same types of advocacy against her. And I think for some good reason.”

The South Australian Government funds the Adelaide Festival.