Channel 9 had ‘clear’ right to fire unvaccinated Warren Tredrea, court told

Channel 9 had “no basis” to fire an unvaccinated Warren Tredrea and breached their contract with him first, his “unfair” dismissal lawsuit has heard.

Warren Tredrea outside the Federal Court. Picture: Russell Millard

Channel 9’s decision to fire unvaccinated sportscaster and AFL great Warren Tredrea was “reasonable” and “justifiable” given the “once-in-a-generation health crisis” of Covid-19, a court has heard.

In their closing submissions on Thursday, counsel for the network asked the Federal Court to dismiss Tredrea’s $5.7m lawsuit, arguing their client had done nothing wrong.

Brendon Roberts KC, for Nine, said the trial had unnecessarily delved “into the mire” of controversy surrounding vaccines when it could be resolved “in simple fashion”.

The network, he said, had to comply with federal and state mandates, safeguard the health and wellbeing of its employees from the virus and keep its Adelaide newsroom operating.

It also had the “clear” right to terminate employees and contractors who did not comply with its policies – and Tredrea had not done so.

“What is uncontroversial is that this period of time gave rise to a once-in-a-generation health crisis (and) advice that vaccination provided the way to reopening the country,” he said.

“The requirement for vaccination was placed as a precondition to that reopening … it was vaccination that would provide freedom of interaction.

“For Nine, there was an aspect of government intrusion in matters, which would ordinarily be freedom of commerce between employers and employees … (this) became a justifiable exception to the norm.”

Tredrea claims he was unfairly dismissed by Nine. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

Jeremy Pudney, director of news at Nine News, told the court Tredrea had bruised his own reputation. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Naomi Jellicoe

Tredrea has asked the court to award him $5,775,000, claiming he was wrongfully dismissed due to Nine’s “unreasonable” Covid policy.

He denies he performed poorly in the job, claiming he “broke more stories” than his colleagues – who, Tredrea claimed, won awards “off the back of me”.

In response, Nine news director Jeremy Pudney told the court Tredrea’s “factually inaccurate” comments about the Covid-19 vaccine left his reputation “permanently bruised”.

He said he considered Tredrea – who was paid more than $216,000 a year for less than four hours’ work a day – was being “compensated too highly”.

The court also heard evidence regarding vaccines from competing expert witnesses – Professor Nikolai Petrovsky for Tredrea, and Associate Professor Paul Griffin for Nine.

Professor Nickolai Petrovsky gave evidence supporting Tredrea.

Microbiologist Associate Professor Paul Griffin gave evidence supporting Nine. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

In his address on Thursday, Simon Ower KC, for Tredrea, agreed the resolution to the dispute was simple – but said that favoured his client.

He said Nine had breached and “repudiated” its contract with Tredrea because its vaccine policy blocked him from doing his job as contracted.

“Any termination of the contract prior to the (end of the) two-year period amounts to a breach of contract … the breach is made out by the cessation of my client’s ability to attend at Nine,” he said.

“We don’t have to prove it amounted to a wrongful termination … (Nine) bears the onus of proving the termination was justified (but) it has sought to conflate the question of breach and the question of justification.

“There was no basis for the termination … the justifications (claimed by Nine) are not made out by the facts.”

The court will reconvene next week before handing down its decision at a later date.