Just another boring writers’ festival where everyone agrees with each other

Sydney Writers Festival artistic director Ann Mossop. Not one conservative is likely to challenge the left-of-centre ethos at the event. Picture: Belinda Rolland

The Sydney Writers’ Festival (artistic director Ann Mossop), which runs from May 19 to May 27, is shaping up to be yet another taxpayer/ratepayer-funded leftist stack. As was the Adelaide Writers Week (director Louise Adler), held during the first week of March.

As would be expected, there are some talented authors on the platform on such occasions.

However, I have examined the program with respect to Australian participants discussing broadly political matters at both the SWF and AWW and could not locate one conservative.

Sure, there are some neutral types and a few social democrats. But not one conservative likely to challenge the left-of-centre ethos that pervades such events.

Mossop told Caroline Overington, The Australian’s literary editor, that speakers at the 2025 SWF had been chosen for “their work”. Mossop added: “We’re not putting on some kind of political discussion designed to represent every single point of view.”

This is a straw-man argument. I am not aware of anyone who has suggested a discussion on every single point of view. That would result in the 2025 SWF being a “Sydney Writers Year”. What Mossop overlooks is that there is scant viewpoint diversity regarding the subjects on the program.

My Life as a Jew by Michael Gawenda

Take, for example, the contentious issue of Palestine in the aftermath of Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, and the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

I can identify a dozen speakers on these panels who are Israel antagonists and only three who are broadly sympathetic to Israel, including Michael Gawenda, a former Age editor who comes from a left-wing Jewish background.

Gawenda, the author of My Life as a Jew (Scribe, 2023), was not invited by Adler to the 2024 Adelaide festival.

The 2025 AWW ran a session titled The State of the Nation that was later broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live. David Marr was the presenter and the panel comprised Bob Carr, Rebecca Huntley and Rick Morton. All are talented polemicists and authors. But all are left-of-centre types on most issues.

No wonder the four essentially agreed with each other on almost everything. And that’s just boring.

There were similar discussions titled Australia’s Carbon Capture: Releasing Fossil Fuel’s Grip on Our Democracy” (featuring economist Ross Garnaut and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young).

And so on. No disagreement there. Plus a session on the United States: Down and Out? featuring Allan Behm, Nick Bryant, Van Jackson and Emma Shortis. Not much division there among this quartet of US critics.

There was a time, more than a half-century ago, when the left in Australia and other Western nations was prepared to listen to oppon­ents. The Vietnam moratorium debates held in Australia in the late 1960s were organised by students and academics who were opposed to Australia’s military commitment in South Vietnam.

But on occasion they were prepared to give a platform to those with opposing views. For example, external affairs minister Sir Paul Hasluck in the Coalition government and anti-communist activist BA Santamaria spoke at such events at Monash University in Melbourne.

Not any more. From the early 1970s until today, it is a rare event indeed when a right-of-centre politician or a conservative commentator can get a podium on a tertiary campus. Put simply, the left will not hear what it does not want to hear. This position pervades univer­sities, writers festivals and the ABC.

Writing in The Saturday Paper on February 22, former Liberal Party leader John Hewson denied that the ABC was a conservative-free zone. But he has not named one conservative presenter, producer or editor on any of the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster’s outlets.

Former Liberal Party leader John Hewson denied that the ABC was a conservative-free zonePicture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

I know individuals within the ABC who did not believe that Cardinal George Pell was guilty of historical child sexual abuse. But they would not say this within the organisation, either on-air or in the privacy of the office. Such was the orthodoxy that prevailed.

Yet in April 2020, in a unanimous decision, all seven judges of the High Court declared the cardinal was not guilty. But to this day the ABC refuses to discuss the case, despite the fact it is an important legal decision, presumably to protect the reputation of its many activist journalists who were involved in the media pile-on against Pell.

One of the reasons the ABC has lost much of its audience in recent years is that many of its programs are so dull because they promote an orthodoxy of thought and detest diversity of views.

Then there is the matter of tolerance. American Jessica Tarlov is a Fox News contributor and occasional presenter. She is also a left-of-centre social democrat who voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election. Tarlov has commented that a poll in 2020 indicated that more Republicans say they would be willing to date someone with different political views than would Democrats.

The evidence suggests that contemporary conservatives are more tolerant than contemporary leftists – who like to be called “progressives”. This even applies to the media. On Fox News in the US last Sunday, Howard Kurtz’s MediaBuzz program discussed politics with Caroline Downey (a conservative contributor to National Review) and Kevin Walling (who worked on the Biden-Harris Democratic campaign).

In Australia, the ABC TV Media Watch program has never had a conservative presenter in its 35-year existence. MediaBuzz is a livelier program than Media Watch. The reason turns on the fact that Kurtz presides over debate and discussion and refrains from delivering secular sermons.

The modern-day progressive left resembles religious institutions of old. Followers of the faith are free to stay – and those who disagree are free to depart. Moreover, contrary views are not heard.

Those who take part in literary festivals are welcome to accept the travel, accommodation and speakers’ fee.

But they would be advised not to delude themselves that they are engaged in an intellectual exercise.

It is understandable why some generous private donors to such events in the past are increasingly unwilling to be associated with the left-wing stack such as the 2025 SWF replete with Israel-antagonists on its platforms.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.