The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has received a legal notice from the Palestinian writer and academic at the centre of the Adelaide writers’ week maelstrom.
On Wednesday, lawyers acting for Randa Abdel-Fattah served a formal concerns notice for defamation to the premier, suggesting the fallout from her cancellation from the 2026 writers’ week – which is itself is now cancelled – is far from over.
The notice follows a week of unprecedented turmoil that saw the majority of guests scheduled to appear at the event withdraw in protest, most of the Adelaide festival board resign, and the resignation of the writers’ week director, Louise Adler.
In a statement released on Instagram, Abdel-Fattah accused the premier of making harmful public statements about her and said she refused to become a political punching bag.
“We have never met and he has never attempted to contact me,” she wrote.
She accused Malinauskas on Tuesday of going “even further” than previous statements supporting her removal from the festival by linking her to the Bondi atrocity and allegedly suggesting, by way of analogy, that she was “an extremist terrorist sympathiser”.
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During a press doorstop on Tuesday, when asked to justify his public support for Adbel-Fattah’s removal, the premier used a hypothetical analogy.
“Can you imagine if a far-right Zionist walked into a Sydney mosque and murdered 15 people?” he said.
“Can you imagine that as the premier of this state, I would actively support a far-right Zionist going to writers’ week and speaking hateful rhetoric towards Islamic people? Of course I wouldn’t, but the reverse has happened in this instance. And I think that’s a reasonable position for me to take, it’s a view that I believe.”
Abdel-Fattah confirmed to the Guardian she has instructed Michael Bradley from the legal firm Marque – the lawyer who is also acting for pianist Jayson Gillham in his discrimination case against the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra – to act on her behalf.
Four members of the festival board, including the chair, Tracey Whiting, resigned on Saturday during an extraordinary board meeting. On Sunday, prior to that becoming known, Bradley sent a letter of demand to Whiting asking her to provide every statement made by the academic that had played a part in the board’s decision to axe her from the 2026 program.
Appearing on the ABC’s 7.30 program on Wednesday evening, Malinauskas said he began to lobby for Abdel-Fattah’s removal from the writers’ week around Christmas, when he had “a number” of conversations with the board chair, leading to him penning a letter to the board on 2 January, “advocating” his point of view.
Asked if he would be prepared to go to court over his comments about Abdel-Fattah, the premier said he had to “examine my conscience and do what I believe is right”.
“Everybody can see the remarks that I’ve made … with a desire to advocate the case for basic human decency and respect for other people’s views and opinions,” he said.
“Ms Randa Abdel-Fattah will do what she will do, and she’s entitled to take whatever action she likes, but my responsibility is to make sure that particularly in a time like this post-Bondi, we aren’t escalating tensions in this country unnecessarily – and more than that, when we express opinions we’re able to do so respectfully.”
The Guardian has sought comment from the premier.
