Does Australia uphold the right of artists to critically engage with history, politics, and the urgent issues of our time? Columnist HUGH SELBY says the answer is that we don’t and we won’t. Here’s why…
Twenty-twenty-six is shaping up to be another year of intolerance, ignorance informing opinions, and censorship disguised as “wringing hands of concern”.
The censors do have concern, but it is for themselves, not for the others they profess to care about.
In 2025 Penelope Benton, speaking for the National Association for the Visual Arts, questioned, “whether Australia upholds the right of artists to critically engage with history, politics, and the urgent issues of our time.”
The answer is that we don’t and we won’t. We leave it to those adversely affected and a small group of idealists (aka doomed “naivetists”) to rail against censorship, which these days is wrapped in the soothing words of whatever is the current political correctness.
Early in August ABC Online ran an article reporting on the angst of actor Hazem Shammas, who was starring in Bell Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.
More recent events make his comments worth reading anew.
As an Australian Palestinian, playing a role where Coriolanus talks about “essentially ethnic cleansing”, caused him angst and it’s easy to see why: is this art imitating today’s life, or is current life imitating old art?
Tellingly he noted, “[Coriolanus] is a play about the abuses of power, but when we’re living in a climate of utter, horrific abuse of power and our arts community is silenced, and we remain silent, it troubles me.”
When in doubt, cancel
The ABC article refers to several instances of cancelled performances and rescinded awards, in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
The best known of those troubling events was the dropping and then reinstatement of artist Khaled Sabsabi as our representative at the Venice Biennale.
That saga is laid out here.
Sabsadi had been selected and then dropped by the Creative Australia Board which issued a statement of justification that a public debate provoked by the choice of Sabsabi, “poses an unacceptable risk to public support for Australia’s artistic community and could undermine our goal of bringing Australians together through art and creativity”.
This was not an evidence-based statement.
This was the double-speak response of nearly all the board to allay concerns from Labor’s Arts Minister Tony Burke. George Orwell, eat your heart out. We have surpassed your vision for 1984.
Dear Tony was quick to say that he hadn’t directed the board. Indeed, he hadn’t, just as King Henry did not direct the murderous knights who chose, of their own will, to rid Henry of a vexing priest.
One aspect of Shakespeare’s brilliance is his ability to capture the worst aspects of our human characters, such as boot licking, opportunism, treachery, cowardice, and putting a finger to the wind as the only way to make a decision.
Also in August 2025, the Bendigo Writers Festival was riven by the withdrawal of a number of invitees because, it was reported, they were concerned about limits on free speech, specifically with respect to comment upon the genocide in Gaza.
Australian Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, whose most recent book titled Discipline deals with issues surrounding the conflict in the Middle East, was one of them.
She said at the time: “When journalists are being permanently silenced by Israel’s genocidal forces, it is incomprehensible that a writers’ festival should also seek to silence Palestinian voices”.
Little did she know, as she and we now do, that the Bondi massacre would be the excuse to justify continued gagging of discussion about the Gaza genocide, that any and every criticism of the dominant Jewish view (there are many Jewish people who are appalled by Netanyahu’s actions) was to be labelled as antisemitic and therefore banned, but that it was open season for painting a broad anti-Muslim canvas.
Sadly, the idea of intelligent artistic expression, debate and discussion among literate, thinking adults has taken another hit, this time from the Adelaide Writers’ Week which is part of the once renowned Adelaide Festival.
And, for a second time, the target is Randa Abdel-Fattah. Her scheduled event has been cancelled. Writers are now boycotting the Festival. See examples, with comments, here.
The festival board has stated in the opening gambit for 2026 double-speak: “Whilst we do not suggest in any way that Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s (sic) or her writings 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’s another statement devoid of any evidence to support it.
Let’s try then to grasp the intent of those words: “While we do not want to give Abdel-Fattah any chance to claim that we have defamed her, her support for the Palestinians at a time when the clamour of the antisemitism label gets ever louder, makes us afraid that we’ll be tarred with the brush of cultural insensitivity, meaning not being clearly onside with the idea that any criticism of Israeli actions is inherently antisemitic”.
Double standards
But wait; just a little over three months ago our progressive government recognised the State of Palestine (and thus the right of Gaza and its inhabitants to exist).
Therefore, surely, there should be more, not less, openness in our public discussions about the appalling conduct of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Israeli government, ISIS etcetera as these bodies have willy-nilly sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands of innocents.
Quite so, no argument, but – to please the powers that be – please remove the Israeli government from the list of “baddies”. They are on “our” side. Easily done, as easily as any other misinformation.
Which brings us to the misinformation that was on display on Thursday when it was rumoured that Albo would appoint former High Court Justice Virginia Bell as head of an inquiry into the Bondi Massacre.
ABC Online ran a long article shortly before Albo announced the inquiry and her appointment.
It included the following: “Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg – who has been one of the loudest voices calling for a royal commission – [posted] that the Jewish community had expressed concerns about Ms Bell as an option.
“It is unthinkable the prime minister would choose a commissioner that did not have the total confidence of the Jewish community”.
[Individuals speaking privately].. .said concerns remained in some parts of the community [that] she was associated with the political left.
“Sources in prominent Jewish Australian groups… specifically cited the lack of trust between the community and the Albanese government as a contributing factor in the fear his eventual royal commissioner pick would not examine elements of the antisemitism issue important to them.”
The ABC article did not contain any reference to what other interested groups, such as Palestinian Australians, other Muslims, thought about an inquiry or who should head it. That’s a telling insight into who has access to Australian mainstream media and who warrants attention from that media.
Nor did the ABC article mention that the commissioner, male or female, left or right leanings, religious or non-religious, would be bound by the terms of reference handed to them by the government.
To be clear, those Jewish people who thought that the choice of commissioner determined the interest of the inquiry were the victims of false information, presumably deliberately spread within their community.
I hope that the terms of reference will allow the inquiry to examine the current spate of intolerance in our society that reaches beyond our Jewish colleagues.
Writer Randa Abdel-Fattah, artist Khaled Sabsabi, actor Hazem Shammas, and cricketer Usman Khawaja also need to be heard and respected.
Leave a Reply