The University of Western Australia has just announced it will be disbanding University of Western Australia Press (UWAP) after 85 years of operation. We decry this decision as short-sighted.

UWAP under current director Terri-Ann White is a national treasure and its cessation would leave an enormous hole in the Australian literary landcape. In the past 5 years in particular, UWAP has published wonderful and groundbreaking work, including Josephine Wilson's Miles Franklin Award-winner Extinctions. UWAP work featured again this year on the shortlist for the Prime Minister's Literary Award ('Dancing in Shadows' by Anna Haebich). 2019 has also seen a shortlisting in the National Biography Award (for Rozanna Lilley's 'Do Oysters Get Bored?') and a win in the WA Premiers Book Award for an Emerging Writer (Renee Pettit-Schipp's poetry collection 'The Sky Runs Right Through Us'). UWAP is also the publisher behind internationally acclaimed author Kim Scott's series of storybooks in the Noongar language.  In poetry publishing in particular, UWAP has made an enormous impact, bringing a large number of crucial new voices to the page as well as bringing out work by established and nationally significant poets. None of these key literary projects would have happened without the vision and passion of Terri-Ann White and her staff, and Australian literature would be so much the poorer. The decision to disband UWAP will have a devastating impact not just at UWA, not even just in the state of WA, but nationally. It will undo years of publishing innovation and stunt the current flourishing of creativity in our country's literature. 

Sign below to urge the University of Western Australia to reconsider its decision and reinstate UWAP.

(Full disclosure by the instigator of this petition: I am not myself published by UWAP.  I simply have enormous professional respect for the work they do, and I think it is critical they continue to be able to do it - former Prime Minister's Literary Award winner, poet Melinda Smith)

(Partial translation into Chinese:

西奥大学（University of Western Australia - UWA）策划解散西奥出版社 （University of Western Australia Press -UWAP). 其 眼光将持有85 年历史的UWAP 一解而散的作法. 眼光短浅之 至!

这种宣告不但给澳大利亚本身的文化有毁灭性的打击，而且缩短了西奥大学在文化领域的领导名望.)