Anger and political passion built during a long night at the Australian Book Industry Awards in Sydney on Thursday, where speakers including Jeanette Winterson and Jonathan Franzen, Tim Winton and Jackie French condemned the federal government's proposals for free import of books and free use of copyrighted material.

Author Richard Flanagan, the final speaker of the night, put it most bluntly: "F--- them. If you care about books, don't vote Liberal."

Flanagan, whose prisoner-of-war novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, shared a 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Award after Tony Abbott overruled the judges, said, "The last two Liberal governments have been the worst in history for arts and culture."