Bourgeois writers are pulling out of the Bendigo Writers Festival in protest over restrictions on their freedom of speech over the war in Gaza.

Event participants were given a code of conduct that said they must “avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful”.

I would have added ‘boring’.

In what can only be called over doing the health and safety angle, the festival organisers said, “Bendigo Writers Festival is committed to holding an event that engages in respectful debate, open-minded discussion, and explores topical and complex issues.”

They said the festival and La Trobe University – who I presume sponsored this PC shindig – felt it necessary to emphasise the importance of safety and wellbeing (my italics) for all participants by introducing a code of conduct.

Pull the other one.

Let us cut to the chase. These festivals are sauvignon blanc swilling bonkers retreats for middle class women who gather with other women to sit in the crowd and nod sagely as other women read from their poorly written novels about other women who are rising above victimhood by writing a novels about women.

Most attendees are creative writing tragics and middle aged women from the leafy streets of east Melbourne with too much time on their hands.

How about volunteering for the Red Cross?

Evelyn Araluen, who is whiter than the Milky Bar Kid, yet claims aboriginality on her Dad’s side, wrote to the festival organisers saying the festival code of conduct “directly infringes on my freedom of speech … my cultural duty as a First Nations woman and my obligation as someone with a large platform to speak out against oppression, which includes speaking out against Israel’s ongoing UN-defined genocide of the Palestinian people.”

Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1200 people, including the massacre of young people at the Nova music festival and elderly residents and children living in kibbutzes near the Gaza border.

It was the worst mass murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

It’s almost enough to make one take The Australian rectally.

Almost.