The chaotic 48 hours inside the ABC before Antoinette Lattouf was axed

It was an unwelcome late-night dispatch. The ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, forwarded a brusque email from the national broadcaster’s then-chair, Ita Buttrose, to a fellow executive and said he was “just sharing the pain”.

“I have a whole clutch more complaints,” Buttrose had told Anderson amid an escalating email campaign against journalist Antoinette Lattouf, then fill-in host of ABC Radio Sydney’s Mornings program, over her views on the Israel-Gaza war. Those views had not been expressed on radio.

Buttrose lobbed the email at 9.59pm on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.

It was not her first missive that evening. At 8.39pm, Buttrose had emailed Anderson: “Has Antoinette been replaced. I am over getting emails about her.”

Lattouf was removed from the air the next day, about 48 hours after the complaints accusing her of antisemitism had started.

The freelance journalist and presenter claims in her unlawful termination suit, being heard in the Federal Court in Sydney, that the ABC bowed to pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists.

Lattouf, described in court this week by Buttrose as “an activist” on the war, alleges her political opinion, expressing support for Palestinians, and her Middle Eastern race played a role in the national broadcaster’s decision to oust her.

During a defiant 90 minutes in the witness box this week, Buttrose insisted she did not want Lattouf taken off-air and that if she “wanted somebody removed, I’d be franker than that”.

Internal ABC emails and text messages, tendered in evidence and released by the Federal Court, reveal the broadcaster was in turmoil as the complaints rolled in.

At the time of the Buttrose emails, Anderson was disinclined to take Lattouf off-air before the end of her five-day contract, which had started a day earlier on Monday, December 18.

He told Buttrose that Lattouf would “finish up on Friday” as planned.

Anderson forwarded Buttrose’s second email to Chris Oliver-Taylor, the ABC’s chief content officer, at 10.09pm on Tuesday.

“Why can’t she come down with flu? Or Covid. Or a stomach upset?” Buttrose asked in that email. This was a “face-saving idea … for Antoinette”, she told the court.

Buttrose suggested in the email that Lattouf “wasn’t honest when she was appointed”. Anderson did not share that view, he said in an affidavit filed in court.

On Tuesday night, Oliver-Taylor did not believe taking Lattouf off-air was the right call.

“The blowback will be phenomenal. I recommend we hold until Friday. No comment on the war, it’s not related, no beach [sic] of our own editorial protocols,” Oliver-Taylor emailed Anderson at 10.41pm.

Anderson agreed. “I know that – hold the position, just sharing the pain,” he wrote at 10.41pm.

Anderson sent a further email to Buttrose on Wednesday morning, explaining they were “absolutely in damage control” but his position was that Lattouf’s contract should end as planned on Friday.

“If we do remove her, there will be claims of doing so without cause given her position on the Middle East was widely known prior to her engagement, we have caved to pro-Israeli lobbying, and she hasn’t actually breached impartiality this week,” Anderson wrote at 10.58am.

“Thanks for the explanation, David – it must be Christmas. See you at lunch,” Buttrose replied at 11am.

But in the 19 minutes between 11.13am and 11.32am, Buttrose sent Oliver-Taylor six emails forwarding further complaints about Lattouf.

Buttrose said she did so at Anderson’s request, but he gave evidence he had told her that “I would prefer you send them to me”.

At 11.25am, Buttrose emailed Oliver-Taylor: “I think we will keep getting these complaints until Antoinette leaves.”

From about 12.30pm, Anderson and Buttrose had a long-planned Christmas lunch at the celebrity chef-run Luke’s Kitchen in Sydney’s Pitt Street.

Anderson missed a call from Oliver-Taylor. It was followed by a series of urgent text messages.

“I have no option but to stand her down,” Oliver-Taylor texted Anderson at 1pm.

The tipping point, in Oliver-Taylor’s mind, was that Lattouf had shared a post critical of Israel from non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch on Instagram the day before. Lattouf had added the caption: “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.”

Oliver-Taylor believed this was contrary to a direction Lattouf had been given not to post about the war that week.

He texted Anderson that The Australian was poised to “run a yarn” on Lattouf and “I’m going to action this now and try and beat the story”.

The newspaper had put questions about Lattouf to the ABC at 11.24am and published a story at 2.39pm asserting she had been “sacked”.

The ABC’s head of audio content, Ben Latimer, gave evidence in court that he had told the ABC’s Steve Ahern, acting in the position of head of capital city networks, on December 19 to “direct Antoinette Lattouf not to post anything on social media” about the Israel-Gaza war.

Lattouf disputes that a direction in these terms was given.

In an email at 1.16pm on December 19, Ahern told Latimer that Elizabeth Green, then ABC Radio Sydney’s content director and Lattouf’s line manager, had “reiterated to Antoinette the importance of not talking about Israel-Gaza in her shows” and “suggested that Antoinette may be wise not to post anything on her socials this week”.

Antoinette Lattouf and her barristers, Oshie Fagir (left) and Philip Boncardo, leave the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday.Credit: Kate Geraghty

Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir, put to Latimer in court that this email was “completely inconsistent” with a more explicit direction having been given.

Latimer said the email confirmed to him that the direction was issued, and he was “very confident that it had been conveyed”.

The complaints about Lattouf had started after midday on Monday, following her first shift, before the Human Rights Watch post. On Wednesday morning, and without having seen the post, Anderson was already looking for a scalp.

He told Buttrose the decision to hire Lattouf had been “negligent” because her “prior media and social media” was not assessed, but he did not suggest she had breached any ABC standards that week.

Many of the complaints received by the ABC referred to an article Lattouf had co-authored for Crikey, which reported that widely circulated footage purporting to show pro-Palestinian protesters outside the Opera House on October 9, 2023, chanting the grossly antisemitic phrase “gas the Jews” could not be verified.

NSW Police would later say forensic analysis of video and audio from the protest had concluded the chant was “where’s the Jews”. There was evidence other offensive phrases were chanted, including “f--- the Jews”.

The ABC maintains Lattouf was not sacked. It claims her employment concluded after five days as planned, but she was not required to host the last two shows. Lattouf was paid in January 2024 for all five days.

The Fair Work Commission decided after a preliminary legal skirmish last year that Lattouf’s employment was terminated by the ABC. However, Justice Darryl Rangiah is not bound by that decision, and determining whether Lattouf was sacked is a pivotal issue.

Former ABC chair Ita Buttrose leaves the Federal Court on Tuesday after giving evidence.Credit: James Brickwood

Between 5.33pm and 5.46pm on Wednesday, December 20, 2023, hours after Lattouf was told to pack up her things and leave the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters, Buttrose responded to nine complaints.

“You are probably unaware that Ms Lattouf no longer works at the ABC,” she wrote.

One of Lattouf’s barristers, Philip Boncardo, put to the former ABC chair that she sent those emails because she regarded this as a “good outcome”.

“No, that was a way of tidying up the emails in my inbox, so I can go and have a happy holiday,” Buttrose said.

She also forwarded Anderson an email thanking the ABC for taking Lattouf off-air and wrote: “It’s nice to get congratulatory emails.”

Buttrose told the court she had “nothing to do” with Lattouf’s abrupt exit from the airwaves.

“I didn’t wish her to be removed. I didn’t put pressure on anybody.”

The court will hear closing submissions on February 27.

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