By Helen Reynolds
The decision by Adelaide University to withdraw a venue booking for an event featuring a leading United Nations human rights expert has ignited a fierce debate about academic freedom and censorship in South Australia.
The controversy surrounds a panel discussion titled “Settler Colonialism: What It Can Tell Us About the Conflict in Israel/Palestine,” which was scheduled to be held at the university’s Elder Hall. The event is part of the Constellations: Not Writers Week, a breakout festival created in response to the recent cancellation of the official Adelaide Writers’ Week.
The panel features Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was to appear via video link, alongside esteemed historian Henry Reynolds and UNSW academic Lana Tatour.
According to event moderator Chris Sidoti, Elder Hall had been booked a month in advance. However, on Tuesday, the university informed organisers that the booking was being revoked, citing “health and safety” concerns.
In a statement, an Adelaide University spokesperson defended the decision, stating they were only made aware of the external event the previous Friday. The university claimed it could not accept the booking because it:
“… did not go through the required review and approval process in accordance with the required policy and procedure.”
The spokesperson added that the university could not “ensure the safety, respect and comfort of those attending” and suggested an alternative venue – the National Wine Centre – at a significantly higher cost of $23,500, compared to the $750 fee for the university hall.
This explanation has done little to quell the criticism. Mr. Sidoti described the move as a “sad reflection on the state of Adelaide University today,” arguing that the institution’s core role is precisely “to provide forums for these kinds of discussions – and it’s failing in that.”
Political Backlash and Free Speech Concerns
The cancellation has drawn sharp rebukes from political figures, who see it as part of a worrying trend of silencing dissenting voices.
Greens Senator for South Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young, demanded the university explain its actions, calling the reports “concerning.” She linked the decision to the earlier controversies surrounding Writers’ Week, suggesting a broader “culture of fear infecting our institutions.”
“You cannot cancel curiosity, you cannot cancel compassion, and you cannot silence a city that believes in the exchange of ideas and freedom of expression,” Senator Hanson-Young said. She accused the university of capitulating to external pressure, stating that “seeking to silence a distinguished international human rights expert undermines academic freedom, weakens intellectual integrity, and contradicts the very principles universities are meant to uphold.”
The event is part of the Constellations festival, which was formed after the official Adelaide Writers’ Week was cancelled this year. That decision followed the withdrawal of hundreds of authors protesting the treatment of Palestinian-Australian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, who was controversially uninvited from the original lineup.
When questioned directly about whether concerns regarding Ms. Albanese’s appearance – particularly in light of past criticism and US sanctions – influenced the decision, the university spokesperson did not provide a direct answer. They reiterated that the institution prides itself on being a place for the free exchange of ideas.
Event to Proceed at New Venue
Despite the university’s withdrawal, the discussion will go ahead. Organisers have secured the Norwood Concert Hall in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs for Thursday evening, where a sold-out crowd is expected to attend.
Senator Hanson-Young highlighted the public response as a rebuke to the university’s decision:
“Thankfully the event will go ahead… showing that South Australian audiences aren’t as fearful as these institutions,” she said.
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Now, if they’d cancelled Anthony instead of Francesca Albanese you might have said ‘yeh, I get that, I can see why the PM is a bit on the nose these days,’ but to cancel, (or endeavour to deny her a public voice, same thing), the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, a woman widely admired for her fearless truth-telling, and author of Palestinian Refugees in International Law, (2021), A Moon Will Rise From The Darkness, (2025), Israelis are bastards, (2026), amongst no doubt a long list of reports on the appalling treatment of the Palestinian people smacks of cowardice and yet-again buckling to the incessant lobbying by Jewish people who just hate the idea that truth about their behaviour gets publicly aired.
Yes, she called the Israelis bastards. Too bad. Sometimes the truth hurts. Adelaide Uni’s actions yet again evoke the image of Moscow on the Torrens. I’m going down there in two day’s time to see Isabelle Huppert in action on stage in the role of Mary, Queen of Scots. Finger’s crossed she doesn’t also get cancelled… her monologue’s in French anyway so it should be fine. [And no, I don’t speak French, there are surtitles and I’ve also read Darryl Pinckney’s book Mary Said What She Said, on which the play is based.]
It is pitiful McCarthyite rubbish from people who can’t fathom a contradiction or two (like Chris Minns) and can’t handle any interpretation other the the same as the one they, in barefaced ignoranced and arrogance, cling to.
I was reading this story this morning on social Meeja and one source claimed that Ad Uni had backed off closing out Francesca Albanese- she would be coming after all, if she needed to.
I Would f—–g hope so!
But, you wonder, is this 2026 or 1956..only the labeling is different.
Whilst the University’s actions are worrying it is good that an alternative venue has been secured and that it is sold out.
From Gaza to Iran, a wee bit more of Francesca Albanese and the unmasking of a Neo-Colonial World Order.
It appears that an article in “The Israelian” a few days ago criticising F. Albanese has probably spooked Adelaide Uni, and they’ve run away from any possible bad press.
It’s fitting and proper that it is now in Don’s land, Don would be spinning in his grave.
Maybe they need to get Bettina Arndt, ‘Bookcase’ Brandis and Koch Network outlets IPA, CIS etc. onto this to ensure freedom of speech that they always demand, or is that just RW men’s rights?
Yes, and one doubts whether anyone in media could even formulate a relevant question on this and any other issue; don’t ever ask how or why (Brave New World).
So, in Australia, a woman of the highest integrity is not to be heard in an Australian public university because she has been critical of Israel, named those companies profiteering from genocide and named countries complicit in a genocide including Australia.
But an inciter of that genocide is given the red carpet by Labor and Australians peacefully protesting his presence on Australian soil sadistically assaulted by Labor’s goons – 4 vertebrae of an elderly lady broken, ribs broken, a young women pepper sprayed repeatedly as she convulsed on the ground, repeated vicious punches landed a man offering no resistance, a man punched in the head and kidneys dozens of times as he lay restricted on the ground, peaceful people violently pushed to the ground, people praying violently dragged away and thrown to the ground, and a Greens MP required surgery on her eye to save it after being bashed earlier.
What kind of country are we becoming under Labor? Is this the kind of country Australians want to live in? a country where half the people live in fear of what they can and can’t say or do lest they be subject to violent state repression or jail, where the very ideas we can discuss are censured and controlled with discussion of universal human rights and humanity towards Palestinians to be silenced, where the government gaslights them, labelling them as spoilers of ‘social cohesion’.
Adelaide University’s capitulation is shameful, but we should remember the climate in which the decision was made. Its funding will be controlled according to how it is judged on how it deals with antisemitism under a definition that will conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It is Labor that has brought in the repressive framework that Adelaide University and all our universities will have to operate.
(Can’t find the article but I read somewhere today that) A group of Sydney University students marched to protest Australia’s support for Israel and the USA’s kiddy-killing illegal attack on Iran. The university tried to ban their march, and they may face disciplinary actions from the university. Our freedoms of thought and expression are being repressed under Labor.
Labor is taking Australia to a very dark place.
I flicked an email to Adelaide Uni, as I am sometimes inclined when stirred by egregious incidents… it ran as follows:
Dear old Adelaide Uni,
I knew you well, attending as a student in the mid-seventies, following the long forgotten footsteps of my grandfather who after graduation became one of Adelaide’s premier architects. I have always carried a deep respect for you as an institution… until… well… the, ahem, current fiasco in which it seems you are intent on causing yourselves as much unwelcome attention and embarrassment as the recently cancelled Writer’s Festival.
What is it about those in charge of academic institutions these days that they cave in so readily, so cravenly, when faced with opposition to their hosting of what a miniscule clique of citizens deem to be too controversial, as appears to be the case with Ms. Albanese?
Clearly, the well-oiled propaganda machine operated by Israel that endeavours to paint themselves in saintly fashion and all those who object be tarnished with whatever ad hominem criticisms can be created, irrespective of truth and objectivity, has had a win with your anonymous suits whom, one suspects, are afraid of losing their Israeli dollar benefits.
Most disappointing that you caved in… it bodes you no benefit at all, and you are now the subject of unwelcome international attention for denying a respected UN official a venue for her voice to be heard in regard to the appalling genocide conducted by the IDF with the aid and assistance of governments and global corporations; that you preference a country that ruthlessly destroys infrastructure and innocents – men, women, children – over an honest voice that has the courage to speak truth to evil where others dare not… shame, shame, shame on you.
Moscow on the Torrens, indeed.
Sincerely,
etc.
I suppose they are edgy about another Bondi (not the American version?), but isnt it “caving in to terrorism”?
Curious it turns up when someone like Francesca Albanese turns up
Netanyahu and Segal must be overcome with joy at the thought of scaring the shit out of our pollies and centres of learning.
The university of Adelaide retired in 2025 and adopted a brash young uni. Sadly the old conservatives would have been terrified of the surname, frightened of jewish reaction and worried by gender (the youngsters were OS). However they showed the university’s loose attitude to cash by suggesting an alternate venue @ 30 times the cost.
Hand-in-glove with govt(s) abdication of civic institutions for all, and instead opting for hyper-liberal capitalism model, brings institutions, particularly, Universities into the sphere of capture by multi-national oligarchies and hugely monied orgs that specialize in covert ops, all acting like donors of good charitable faith.
Except it has sfa to do with good charitable faith, rather, it is a targeted multi-tier, multinational propaganda machine programmed with wretched biases and prejudices. It bleeds out of the ‘west’, particularly the US-Zionistas like 21st Century black plague.
So the academia wrecking cringing managerialist moneygrubbers now running unis have these donor propaganda machines coercing and bringing on more wreckage & crushing of civil society via the brains-trust.
Senator Fatima Payman just spoke in parliament raising awareness that Labor, West Australia, passed laws to stop people posting and boasting about crimes, but that gave the government the power to jail protesters who post vision of a protest online, and its retrospective.
Labor has created a secret police unit to ‘control’ protest against AUKUS, it engineered a vicious and violent attack on peaceful protesters, it legislated to make criticism of Israel a jailable offence, and now if you post, or have in the past, a video of state violence perpetrated on protesters they can have you jailed.
Our universities have capitulated to this intimidation.
Labor is taking Australia to a very dark place.
@ Canguro: Uhm ….. the aim of the ZIONAZIS dictating government policy to the NO-GO-ALBO LABOR misgovernment is to conflate their 19th century White Supremacist colonist settler apartheid theology around Judaism, the much more ancient theology.
Estimates have ZIONAZIS as only about 30% of the 117,000 Judaism followers, about the same proportion as National Socialists in Germany between 1933-1945; and we know how badly that ended.
Perhaps the optimal solution would be to distinguish between the followers of Judaism and the ZIONAZIS because there is some overlapping, but only as there is between Proddies and Romans.
Agreed. Francesca Albanese should speak at Adelaide University and tell the ZIONAZIS to export themselves out of Australia.
Yes indeed, Mr Cocky. It occurred to me when reading your post that there is another overlapping, a Venn diagram as it were…
Accepted that not all Jewish people are Zionists, and not all Jews are religious either, but for those who are of the Zionist faith, burning brightly within their psyches and forging their ferocious outlook on matters political, social, temporal and so on, it is entirely accurate to label these people as zealots, so, Z is for Zionist and Z is for Zealot, and zealots, by definition, are willing to burn in hell rather than give up on their beliefs. Hence, we find, here in this country, this miniscule subset of one of the planet’s human diasporas, a handful of people willing to harangue, argue, vilify, abuse, criticise, demand, and go to the never-end in order to impose their points of view on whatever unwilling audience is their target.
“Deepcut reported in December that Zaina Amro, a 16-year-old high school student who frequently volunteered with Bayside City Council, was scrubbed from the October/November 2025 edition of community magazine Let’s Talk Bayside and the council’s website after complaints about the necklace she wore in the magazine’s photos.”
The pendant was merely in the shape of Palestine and in the Palestinian colours. The complaints claimed it called for the extermination of Jews and was denying the right of Israel to exist.
This erasure of Zaina from the ‘Let’s talk Bayside’ is just part of a systematic erasure of anything Palestinian in Australia under Labor.
It turns out that one of the complainants was a senior member of Tim Wilson’s election campaign. https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/tim-wilson-campaigner-complained Let’s not forget though, it is stinking Labor that has allowed, aided and abetted all this persecution of Australians over their Palestinian heritage to go on.
@Canguro:
“…yet-again buckling to the incessant lobbying by Jewish people who just hate the idea that truth about their behaviour gets publicly aired.”…
For someone distinguished by writerly commentary your use of the phrase “by Jewish people” is puzzling here.
Please explain?
@Herbert, I suppose if I’d included the signifier ‘of Zionist conviction’ it may have been more accurately depicted. You’re correct to point out the laxity… for one who generally takes care as to how his written language is presented, it’s poor of me. Thank you for the question.
‘Tis a pity that Pauline Hanson’s use of your closing query has spoilt it for others. Kind of up there with the fact of nobody naming their child Adolf or Judas.