We should all be gravely concerned by these continuing instances of ministerial overreach and the violation of independent selection processes in our taxpayer funded arts organisations. It is censorship complicit with the Zionist project of genocide and settler colonialism.

Above all, I echo Ren Wyld’s repeated call to keep our focus and energy fixed on Palestine and Israel’s continuing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Australia must immediately boycott, sanction and divest from Israel, and expel all the ambassador. Nothing less is acceptable, so much more is needed

In the meantime, I’m inviting Blak storytellers to lend their support to an open letter I’ve put together in dialogue with other mob and our allies in the publishing sector. If you’re an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander storyteller, message me to add your name.

I had hoped to use this judging process to advocate for some of the incredible poetry collections published in the last year, to support their work being recognised by the literary community in increasingly precarious industry conditions. I will find other ways to do that.

I won’t participate in a system that prioritises censorship, humiliation, thought-policing and the erasure of anti-genocidal advocacy over the integrity of artists and arts workers. I won’t participate in these concessions to Zionist lobbyists as millions of Palestinians starve to death.

I cannot allow myself to participate in a selection process that I can’t trust, knowing my expert industry insights can be dismissed at the whim of an arts minister based on social media posts completely unrelated to the subject of their work into Stolen Generations histories.

My position is clear - unless the fellowship is reinstated and an apology made to Ren Wyld and to the black&write! team, I would be standing down as a judge for the upcoming Judith Wright Calanthe Award for poetry. Today I was informed by the State Library that the decision would stand.

This decision was not just a strategic undermining of cultural authority, it is also a clear and harmful violation of the sovereignty, self-determination and integrity of black&write!’s fellowship processes which have been successfully delivered every year since their inception in 2011.