The seven-day hearing of the high-profile unlawful termination case, Antoinette Lattouf v the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ended this week. Final submissions will be heard at the end of February, and Justice Darryl Rangiah will retire to consider his verdict.
Lattouf began hosting the ABC Sydney Mornings radio program on Monday 18 December 2023. On Tuesday, she reposted a Human Rights Watch post which reported the Israeli military was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
After the program aired on Wednesday, Lattouf was told she would not be hosting the final two mornings of her contract because of the post.
At the heart of the case seems to be the question of whether Lattouf was given a directive by ABC bosses not to post on social media, which she then breached by sharing the post, or if it was merely suggested to her that she “keep a low profile” on social media, as Lattouf recalled it in court.
Here are the major moments and key takeaways from the hearing.
Paranoia, vodka and threats: The impact on Lattouf
Lattouf’s professional and personal life, and her mental health, have been subjected to the harsh scrutiny only a court case can bring.
“I don’t want any of this,” she said in the witness box during a five-hour cross-examination over two days. “I shared a Human Rights Watch post.”
The court heard she suffered from paranoia and sleeplessness since she was removed and had been subjected to threats.
“Ongoing litigation, continually lied about, defamed, derided by the new chair of the ABC at the National Press Club, had the most horrible mischaracterisations about me in Murdoch press,” she told the court.
Lattouf’s psychiatrist was cross-examined, revealing that the sacked journalist sometimes has a “cup of vodka to sleep” and had been using cannabis every two months.
The coordinated email campaign
The court heard the ABC managing director, David Anderson, began to receive complaint emails on Monday 18 December, after Lattouf’s first shift.
The emails, with names redacted after a court order, were released by the court. The complaints were not about what Lattouf had done or said on air but rather her social media presence before she was hired.
Anderson, a 36-year veteran of the broadcaster who started in the mail room aged 15, said he understood it to be a coordinated email campaign because the content and structure was similar in many of them.
Following the complaints he said he looked at Lattouf’s social media feeds and texted Chris Oliver-Taylor, the ABC’s chief content officer, late on the Monday night: “I think we have an Antoinette issue. Her socials are full of antisemitic hatred”. A flurry of emails followed between Anderson, Oliver-Taylor, the ABC chair, Ita Buttrose, and lower levels of management.
Lattouf’s line manager at the ABC, Elizabeth Green, said in her evidence she felt the pressure emanating from the broadcasting bosses: “There was pressure from the Monday to get rid of Ms Lattouf,” she told the court.
Christmas lunch and a ‘completely abnormal’ process
When Anderson said some “steps” may have been missed when Lattouf was removed on the third day of a five-day contract, it was the first significant admission that process had not been followed.
Anderson told the court it was his understanding that the allegations in the emails were not put to Lattouf.
Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir argued that under the ABC’s enterprise agreement an allegation must be put to an employee.
Anderson confirmed Lattouf was not given a chance to defend herself. He was out of contact at a Christmas lunch with Buttrose, on Wednesday 20 December, as the events unfolded. Unable to reach him by phone, Oliver-Taylor texted Anderson that the decision had been made.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” Anderson told the court. “You would like to have seen that there was certainly a discussion with Ms Lattouf, to find out the motivation behind what I believed, at the time, was disobeying direction.”
Miscommunication in the ranks
For an organisation so steeped in process – code of conduct, editorial policy and social media policy – the miscommunication between the multiple layers of management above Lattouf was starkly laid out in evidence.
Green was tasked by the local radio manager Steve Ahern to speak to Lattouf about her social media use: but whether it was a “suggestion” or a “direction” is a matter of contention. Ahern, Lattouf and Green all differ on the details of these conversations.
Ahern was instructed by the head of audio, Ben Latimer, who in turn was ordered by Oliver-Taylor, who was at that time responsible for all TV, radio and online content. In his affidavit, Oliver-Taylor said: “Ms Lattouf had not complied with an instruction or direction not to post anything during the week in which she was engaged with the ABC that would suggest that she was not impartial in relation to the Israel-Gaza war.”
Lattouf’s evidence was that she was permitted to post “facts” from credible sources.
Above Ahern, Oliver-Taylor was already apologising to Anderson and Buttrose that Lattouf had been appointed by Ahern in the first place.
Until the ABC started getting the critical emails, none of the managers responsible – including Ahern, who hired Lattouf partly to fill a diversity requirement – was cognisant that she was well known as a supporter of the Palestinian people and a critic of the state of Israel.
A race bombshell
When midway through the hearing, the ABC’s lead barrister, Ian Neil SC, rose to say “the ABC does not deny the existence of any race”, it was the start of the broadcaster’s slow retreat from the contentious legal argument it had included in its written submissions: that the onus was on Lattouf to provide evidence in relation to any race claim she may make.
“It follows that Ms Lattouf’s case … insofar as it depends on ‘race’ as an attribute, must fail”, the ABC said in a submission released by the court.
The revelation the ABC had argued the applicant had to prove the existence of a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race angered ABC staff and Australian Middle Eastern and multicultural groups.
On Thursday, the ABC apologised and withdrew the claim, saying “it does not dispute or contest Ms Lattouf’s race or national extraction”. The broadcaster said it will submit an amended defence.
Ita Buttrose
The appearance of Buttrose, a storied media executive, was highly anticipated, as some of the 83-year-old’s colourful emails to Anderson had already been revealed in evidence.
Buttrose was questioned in court about why she had asked Anderson why Lattouf couldn’t “come down with flu or COVID or a stomach upset”. Buttrose laughed and said it was a “face-saving suggestion” for Lattouf.
Questioned by Lattouf’s barrister Philip Boncardo on why she had asked if Lattouf “had been removed yet”, she said she was just asking for an update.
“That is not truthful evidence, Ms Buttrose,” Boncardo countered.
Buttrose responded: “If I wanted somebody removed, I’d be franker than that.”
Buttrose told the court she did not pressure Anderson to take Lattouf off air even though she believed it was “quite apparent” the journalist was an “activist” in relation to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
She said she often made suggestions to the MD but it was not her role to take operational decisions. Her affidavit said she had responded to the individual complaints that had been sent in to the ABC as a matter of “courtesy”.
After giving her evidence, Buttrose muttered an audible “Jesus Christ” after proceedings had ended and her microphone was still live.
