Samuel Cairnduff explores how political pressure, weak leadership and funding models are reshaping what Australian arts organisations dare to do.

Randa Abdel-Fattah and Peter Singer at Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2023. Photo © Andrew Beveridge

On 22 December, 2025, Adelaide Festival Executive Director Julian Hobba sent an email to the South Australian Premier’s Department. Later released under Freedom of Information, it contained a stark assessment of what would happen if Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah were removed from this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week. Between 80 and 90 of the festival’s approximately 170 authors would likely withdraw. First Nations artists across the broader Adelaide Festival program would follow, he warned. The result, he wrote “would decimate the program”.

He urged caution, flagged the...