As is the case with a lot of these articles, the general tone seems to be one of "I don't really like the choices, and I think they are uninformed, because the people chosen are not the ones I would have chosen."

Well, dog gone it onemack, I liked it. I would have had Roy and HG judge both prizes. I'm surprised there isn't someone from one of the zillion university creative writing programs pitching his or her hat in to the ring.

I didn't know that Rudd could exercise a veto and select. What do the commies at the ABC think of this? Will my chardonnay socialist friends who hang out at Writers Week in Adelaide still be smiling after the May Budget? Alas my friends, Rudd will give with one hand and carve deep in to the arts funding 08/09 budget.

Good on you Beth. I like to see a Melb Uni graduate with some get up and go. Reminds me of a young Helen Garner back in the early 70s. Got a bit of 'tude.

A really engaging article here, and it was a pleasure to see a literary event being covered in 'Online Opinion'. So well done, Beth!

I certainly agree with Driscoll's main suggestion that more imagination should have gone into choosing the judges for this event. I was, however, struck by what I perceived to be a bias in the article towards academics. Driscoll praises Peter Pierce and Hilary Charlesworth, yet seems to be skeptical of the judging abilities of the other writers.

For instance, Driscoll speculates whether Sally Morgan is a good-enough choice to be a judge because her fiction-writing has been relatively sparse since the publication of My Place (1987). No such qualms about choosing Charlesworth, who is a legal academic.

This is not an anti-intellectual rant that I am making here. I am myself a postgraduate literary studies student, and believe that academics will always have a worthwhile contribution to make to artistic and cultural events such as this one. But equally valid contributions to such events can be made by cultural producers outside the academy.