Exclusive: University of Queensland scraps Indigenous children’s book, citing controversial anti-Semitism policy

The University of Queensland has decided to pulp all 5,000 copies of a children’s picture book written by an Indigenous poet, after media queries from News Corp’s The Australian newspaper that levelled accusations of anti-Semitism against the book’s illustrator.

It’s a decision that also marks the first time a controversial definition of anti-Semitism, adopted by Australia’s universities last year, has been cited as the basis of a book cancellation.

Bila, a river cycle, was written by award-winning Wiradjuri poet Jazz Money and illustrated by Matt Chun. It’s an environmentally-focused book that tells the story of a river’s journey from mountain to sea and the people who pollute the waterways. Money and Chun began work on the book in 2022 and it was due for release this year.

In January this year, Dymocks announced that it was removing all of Chun’s books from its stores after he wrote an article titled “We don’t mourn fascists” in the aftermath of the Bondi terror attack.

After the Dymocks announcement, The Australian approached University of Queensland Press (UQP), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the University of Queensland, to ask about Bila.

The chair of UQP, Professor Heather Zwicker, told the newspaper that the publisher had, “put the proposed publication on hold pending the outcome of an internal review and external legal processes underway,” effectively suspending its publication.