Sydney Writers’ Festival accused of censorship – again

Controversy has again struck the Sydney Writers Festival, which was accused of censoring patrons trying to distribute material at the 2009 event.
Two journalism lecturers at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), embroiled in a recurring disagreement with Festival organisers, were banned from distributing aMuse, an independent review of the event, within the festival grounds on Saturday morning.
“As far as I am concerned the main issue is that the Sydney Festival denied our free speech inside the Festival,” said Professor Wendy Bacon, head of journalism at UTS, who accompanied lecturer Jenna Price on the weekend.
The newspaper’s publisher, Lawrence Gibbons, alleged he was threatened with arrest following a similar attempt to distribute the publication on Festival grounds the following day.
However, Writers’ Festival General Manager, Ben Strout, said he was not aware of any actions taken against Mr Gibbons. “Such a threat would not be consistent with our agreed rules and conduct,” he said.
Festival spokesperson Helen Johnstone said the site was managed by a private company which controlled what material could be issued in the area.
But Mr Gibbons said he had existing distribution agreements with venues used by the Festival.
In March Professor Bacon was refused a place on a discussion panel about ‘dissent’ at the event, allegedly because of objections by the festival’s artistic director, Wendy Were.
However, Ms Were denied this in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.
Last year Festival News, a joint venture between UTS and the Writers’ Festival, was impounded on the first day of the event because of its criticism of former NSW Arts Minister Frank Sartor.
Ms Were likened the publication to a “trashy magazine, filled with gossip and sniping, which insults the Festival and its supporters”.
Hostilities were reignited earlier this year when an apology by UTS Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Theo Van Leeuwen appeared on the Writers’ Festival website, with lecturers claiming they were not consulted.
Professor Bacon said she was outraged when she learnt of the apology.
Sydney Morning Herald columnist and author Elizabeth Farrelly unsuccessfully tried to inspire discussion about the controversy on a panel at the festival on Saturday, calling it “a blow to free speech”.
“Even when I brought it up at the Writers Festival over the weekend…nobody really wanted me to talk about it,” she said. “I think that we’re so complacent about the privileges that make this place civilised…we just go ‘Oh yeah, boring’. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right.”
News blog Crikey’s correspondent-at-large Guy Rundle was ejected from the Festival last Thursday after he tried to film some of a talk session involving prominent journalists David Marr and Catherine Lumby. He was quick to point out the irony of being booted out of a forum on free speech
After learning of Mr Rundle’s explusion, Professor Lumby told The City News she had no objection to being filmed: “Any public statements I make I presume are on the public record and if they’d like to record them and pass them onto other people that’s fine with me.”