Not Here. Not Now.

A writers festival, a silencing, and what it means to speak plainly in the current climate.

I was looking forward to the Bendigo Writers Festival. It was a chance to meet people I’ve long admired, in the flesh, away from the screen. But days before the event, a code of conduct arrived quietly, and without explanation. It felt less like an invitation to speak, and more like a warning not to say the wrong thing.

For many of us, especially those who live at the intersection of truth and discomfort, this wasn’t unfamiliar. But it was disappointing. At a time when truth-telling in Victoria has gained rare momentum, through the Yoorrook Justice Commission, and the growing public appetite for honesty over politeness , the quiet imposition of such a document, an analogue algorithm, felt off-trend, awkward and out of step.

Here in Victoria, we’ve just spent years gathering truth in all its shimmering rawness from Aboriginal communities across this state. These testimonies spoke not only of the past, but of the ongoing treatment of our people. The over-incarceration, the number of children in out-of-home care, the daily burdens of injustice and all it breaks.

These are deep, painful truths that could not, and should not, be softened. As observer of the workings of Yoorrook and the leadership of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria, we’ve learned something vital - that people are ready, not just to listen or sit with discomfort, but to see what’s been buried. To reveal truth from beneath the sediment of colonial construction and folklore, to reckon with the shape of what’s been hidden, and the stories that were always there, just below the surface.

So when it was brought to my attention by a writer I greatly admire that the writers festival, backed by an institution that claims to value anti-racism and truth-telling, was quietly imposing limits on speech without consultation, it doesn’t just feel wrong, it felt regressive. That’s why I withdrew, and clearly, I wasn’t alone. More than fifty others came to the same conclusion, this wasn’t the space we were promised, and it wasn’t one we could stand by.

Had I known about the letter sent by 5A, one that pre-emptively flagged concern over Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s presence, casting her not as a respected Palestinian voice but as a risk, my polite "no" would have turned into a firm, resounding "f*ck no." Especially knowing that this kind of quiet pressure may have helped shape the very code of conduct cast over the festival like a net.

There’s a difference between stepping away from something that doesn’t sit right with your values, and realising you were almost complicit in something designed to silence and exclude under the guise of “safety". That kind of gatekeeping doesn’t just shape line-ups, it defines the boundaries of what’s allowed to be heard.

My action wasn’t about outrage. It wasn’t about causing a stir. It was about consistency. A throughline between the work of truth-telling here in Victoria and the principles we say we value elsewhere. That letter, and the way it quietly shaped what could be said and who could say it, made the stakes plain. If we say we support openness and the contest of ideas, that has to extend to uncomfortable conversations, not just when they’re convenient, but especially when they’re not.

What stung wasn’t just the code itself, but the silence that followed. Festival organisers framed it as a tool for respectful exchange. La Trobe pointed to its anti-racism commitments. But when nearly fifty participants withdrew, there was no curiosity, no outreach. Just a polished press line and a closed door. A message delivered not in words, but in absence: dissent wasn’t welcome. Not here. Not now.

From a First Nations perspective, this silence is wearyingly familiar. We’ve seen it in policies made without us, in decisions imposed upon us, in the subtle revocation of welcome when truth becomes too sharp.

My peopleare are well beyond that. We’ve been well beyond that for decades and decades.

That’s what made the festival’s handling feel so out of step, not just with the values it claims to hold, but with the broader cultural shift toward openness and honesty. A festival meant to celebrate ideas must be prepared to hold them, even when they’re uncomfortable. Especially then.

We’re told it’s about safety. But whose safety? Too often, the comfort of the majority is protected at the cost of others being silenced. A code that prevents offence often ends up preserving power.

That’s the problem. Because what happened in Bendigo isn’t just a blip. It fits a stubborn, enduring pattern. A writer loses an award for supporting Palestine. An Elder is booed for speaking truth at the Shrine, a journalist is sacked for posting the truth, a code is introduced to keep things tidy. These aren’t isolated incidents. They are signs of an instinct to tidy away the truths that make us uneasy.

But discomfort isn’t danger and reckoning is not harm. In fact, they are the preconditions for change and a reasonable baseline for civil discourse amongst adults.

The decsions by so many wasn’t performace art. Far from it. It was an act of care. Care for integrity, care for truth, and care for the conversations we believe matter. Conversations we still hope audiences are willing to hold.

The festival didn’t need to become a battleground. It could have been a meeting place. But that requires trust and trust requires transparency in a time of global tumult, festivals should be the exemplar that fosters this type of interaction.

Because tens of thousands have died in Gaza and thousands of more lives are under threat at the hands of a rogue regime. We must speak about that without parameters, without standover. Writers are nothing if not global citizens - what did the organisers think was going to happen?

Here at home, children are herded into watch houses. Families mourn deaths in custody. These are not distant tragedies, they’re part of the world we’re trying to reckon with. So yes, words matter and the spaces in which we say them matter just as much, perhaps even more.

The truth demands daylight. It doesn’t wait for permission, and it doesn’t soften itself to fit the room. Once spoken, it moves uncontainable, undeniable and it carries us forward, whether we’re all ready or not. This are what the times demand.