Antoinette Lattouf’s legal fight: Battle lasting longer than her job puts the ABC’s reputation at risk

The ABC’s pursuit of Antoinette Lattouf’s unfair dismissal case — now lasting longer than her time on air — exposes double standards, mixed messaging and a deep rift between management and staff.

ABC managing director David Anderson manages an organisation that receives more than $1.1bn in taxpayer funds. This week he spent two days in court fighting an unfair dismissal case of a casual employee who was paid just $2900.

Sacked ABC radio host Antoinette Lattouf’s case in the Federal Court has already lasted two days longer than her three days on air and it is not finished yet.

What the case has done is lay bare the problems of double standards and mixed messaging inside the national broadcaster and the enormous rift between top management and staff.

It comes after the ABC lost a defamation action to former commando Heston Russell and has led dismayed staff to call for changes to the board and upper management for pursuing a case that has “harmed the ABC’s reputation”.

After her very first Monday shift standing in for Sarah Macdonald on ABC Radio Mornings Sydney in December 2023, Lattouf asked her boss: “Have I done or said anything wrong?”

Sacked ABC radio host Antoinette Lattouf arrives at Federal Court, Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

She was assured she had not but behind the scenes bosses at the very top of the national broadcaster were frantically messaging each other after concerns were raised by an orchestrated pro-Israel campaign to get Lattouf off air.

The volley of complaints was so great Mr Anderson himself decided on Monday night he would conduct his own deep dive into Lattouf’s social media history. The court heard he found a series of posts he felt contained “anti-Semitic hatred” and messaged senior managers that there was an “Antionette issue”.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose at one point suggested Lattouf “come down with flu or Covid or a stomach upset” to get her off the air. Mr Anderson said his concern was Lattouf was completely partisan: “I had concerns that it was possible Ms Lattouf would say similar statements while on air on radio Sydney while hosting live talk back.”

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance on Thursday said ABC staff are “disgusted at the handling” of the case. It called for “improved transparency about complaints and lobbying activities directed at the chair and managing director”.

Lattouf was fired three days into her five-day stint after she posted aHuman Rights Watch report on Israel using “starvation as a tool of war”. Lattouf argued there was one rule for her and another for ABC presenters including Annabel Crabb, Virginia Trioli and Julia Baird, who had all championed causes on their social media.

Lattouf’s lawyer, Oshie Fagir, argued the ABC’s social media policy was arbitrary and pointed to posts by former Media Watch host Paul Barry, Q&A presenter Patricia Karvelas and global affairs editor John Lyons that had not resulted in them being taken off air.

A statement by 7.30 political journalist Laura Tingle that “Australia is a racist country” did not raise alarm. “The fact that millions of Australians are likely to disagree with the statement does not warrant a sanction?” Mr Fagir asked.

ABC chief content officer Christopher Oliver-Taylor was one of two senior managers “blamed” for the unfair dismissal case. Picture: NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

Mr Anderson said it did not because it was “a statement of fact”.

In court, he laid the blame for the unfair dismissal case on two senior managers – the ABC’s chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor, for not following the correct procedure and bringing in the HR team to fire her, and ABC Radio Sydney manager Steve Ahern for hiring her in the first place. He said Mr Ahern had placed the ABC in an unacceptable position by hiring Lattouf when “there were other suitable people who did not have partisan views”.

The point raised throughout is that Lattouf’s views on the war in Gaza were not a secret – she had long been posting on the subject. Her lack of impartiality should not have been the surprise it was to ABC bosses.

The timing of her appointment, just six weeks after the horrors of October 7 made her views particularly controversial.

In an email, Mr Ahern explained she was also hired to fit the ABC’s diversity policy. “Her background is Lebanese-Christian. She grew up in western Sydney, the child of Lebanese immigrants. She’d been selected in part having regard to the ABCs diversity policy,” he wrote.

In fact, she ticked every box to meet the ABC diversity goals but the due diligence was either not done or failed to raise the potential red flags about her lack of impartiality. Ironically, Lattouf argued her race was one of the reasons she was sacked. ABC chiefs then incensed staff by putting the legal defence she had not “demonstrated the existence of a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race” in the first place.

Attempts by the ABC’s head of people and culture, Deena Amorelli, to reassure staff in an email on Thursday that the ABC does not deny certain races exist only made matters worse. The ABC union house committee, which last year passed a vote of no-confidence in Mr Anderson and senior managers, said: “The trial has confirmed our worst fears: the ABC’s independence is not adequately protected.”

Next week, former chair Ms Buttrose will also front the court to discuss her handling of the orchestrated barrage of complaints about Lattouf’s appointment.

Mr Oliver-Taylor said he felt he had been put between “a rock and a hard place” with Ms Buttrose contacting him to say she would be forwarding all complaints to him directly.

The ABC continues to find itself between a rock and a hard place. The question is why, in pursuing this case, it has continued to put itself there.

Originally published as Antoinette Lattouf’s legal fight: Battle lasting longer than her job puts the ABC’s reputation at risk