Adelaide Writers’ Week chief in anti-Libs spray

An expletive-laden Facebook spray of the new SA government lands Adelaide Writers Week boss Jo Dyer in strife.

Jo Dyer: Picture: Tait Schmaal.

There are growing calls for Adelaide Festival chief Rob Brookman to review the appointment of ­Sydney-based Writers Week director Jo Dyer over her expletive-laden Facebook spray of the new Liberal government in South ­Australia.

Premier and Arts Minister ­Steven Marshall, asked yesterday by The Australian for his reaction to Ms Dyer’s remarks, rolled his eyes and made it clear the relationship with the arts community had not got off to a great start.

“I’ve never met Jo Dyer,” Mr Marshall said. “I’ve got far, far, far more important things to get on with in this state at the moment than worry about what Jo Dyer thinks about the Liberal Party.”

South Australian federal frontbencher Christopher Pyne yesterday said it was “an inappropriate Facebook comment from someone who needs to work with the government”.

Ms Dyer, 47, is the Sydney Writers Festival chief executive and was appointed on March 9 to replace Adelaide Writers Week director Laura Kroetsch, who will be directing a new program at the Dark Mofo festival in Hobart.

A former Bangarra Dance Theatre general manager and a Sydney Theatre Company executive producer, Adelaide-born Ms Dyer will commute to South Australia when she starts work at the Adelaide Festival, which includes Writers Week, in June. Her taxpayer salary has not been disclosed.

In a Facebook spray following Labor’s state election defeat last weekend, Ms Dyer lamented the loss of premier Jay Weatherill and said the Liberal Party had “no f. king idea”, predicting it would “flog off everything ... to their corporate mates”.

In a justification of her remarks, Ms Dyer said that “in the cultural, ideas-based, intellectual industries people are obviously going to have political views”.

Mr Brookman ordered her comments be removed but has refused to review her appointment.

Mr Pyne yesterday said Ms Dyer was an old friend from university days and that she had unsuccessfully run for Labor preselection in 2001.

“It’s no secret that Jo Dyer is a supporter of the Labor Party,” Mr Pyne said. “Really, at the end of the day, it’s a matter for Rob Brookman as the CEO of the Adelaide Festival and Writers Week, how he decides to manage it.

“The arts world is rather a rarefied atmosphere — we all see that. It’s a very different part of the society in which we live, and Rob Brookman needs to manage this issue.”

South Australian Treasurer Rob Lucas yesterday called on Ms Dyer to publicly apologise.

“She’s obviously a very strong supporter of the Labor Party,” he said. “She’s obviously got very strong views. She’s entitled to have those views but I think she needs to be very careful on behalf of the followers of the festival and Writers Week in terms of not being so intemperate in the public expression of the views. She is in fact in a taxpayer-funded position and I think it’s disrespectful to the people of South Australia.”