ABC hits legal minefield over Ita Buttrose letter

A hire car bill that landed in former ABC chair Ita Buttrose’s inbox last week threatens to derail closing arguments in the broadcasters case against former presenter Antoinette Lattouf.

Ita Buttrose leaving the Supreme Court of NSW after she gave evidence in the Antoinette Lattouf case. Picture: Jonathan Ng

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A taxi bill threatens to tangle up key evidence in the ABC’s defence in a wrongful dismissal case brought by fill-in radio host Antoinette Lattouf, with sources suggesting it casts into doubt a sequence of events described by former managing director David Anderson.

The Australian has been provided with an invoice that has triggered legal chaos in the ABC camp after former chair Ita Buttrose sent a letter to the broadcaster’s legal team.

The bill, given to Ms Buttrose on Monday last week, saw the ABC’s lawyers at Seyfarth Shaw scramble to convene an emergency legal teleconference on Tuesday to discuss the new evidence.

The bill could call into question Mr Anderson’s version of events before and after a pre-Christmas lunch in 2023, during which the broadcaster acted to remove Lattouf from her radio role.

The Australian does not suggest Mr Anderson’s evidence is incorrect, only that Ms Buttrose sent a copy of the invoice to the ABC after receiving it last week.

The $217.98 bill from Corporate Cars Australia would suggest the then ABC chair was picked up from her Redfern home at 12.10pm on December 20 and driven to the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters to meet with Mr Anderson.

The invoice notes the car arrived at the Harris St headquarters at 12.30, with the driver directed to wait at the front of the broadcaster’s office “not the carpark this time”.

Mr Anderson was then to meet Ms Buttrose, before the two continued on to their lunch at Luke’s Kitchen on Pitt St in Sydney’s CBD.

ABC managing director David Anderson. Picture: Damian Shaw / Newswire

In Mr Anderson’s version of events – included in his evidence filed with the courts in October – he alleges that before the lunch he and Ms Buttrose had a conversation on level 14 of the building in which he claims she told him she would “disagree on the position you’ve taken in relation to Antoinette Lattouf”.

But in Ms Buttrose’s letter to the ABC last week the former chair notes she and Mr Anderson could not have spoken.

The invoice, addressed to Ms Buttrose’s former executive assistant, shows the two were picked up from Luke’s Kitchen at 3pm, returning to the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters, before Ms Buttrose continued on home.

Sources have noted it calls into question evidence provided in the Lattouf case by both Mr Anderson and Ms Buttrose, who has not retained lawyers.

Further, the invoice clashes with Mr Anderson’s detailing of events in which he alleges he was told by ABC’s chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, that Lattouf had been removed from her role at the broadcaster over her social media postings.

Antoinette Lattouf leaves the Federal Court in Sydney. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

Mr Anderson claimed in his affidavit he was in a separate taxi back to the ABC office when Mr Oliver-Taylor dropped the bombshell and detailed how Lattouf had made two posts on Instagram and X that were “against instructions”.

He claimed Mr Oliver-Taylor told him Lattouf’s posts “increase the risk for the ABC, and we don’t trust her to get back on air for the final two days”.

In Mr Oliver-Taylor’s detailed affidavit, he details a 1.43pm message to Mr Anderson in which he notes the ABC would issue a statement about Lattouf, but does not describe the call to Mr Anderson.

But in Ms Buttrose’s affidavit she claims Mr Anderson told her “Mr Oliver-Taylor had told him that he had decided that Ms Lattouf was going to be taken off air and would not continue as an ABC broadcaster because she had disobeyed a direction not to post on social media”.

“I understood this to mean that Ms Lattouf was finishing up that day and wasn’t coming back,” she said.

Ms Buttrose claims in her letter to the ABC that the car invoice supports the claim she and Mr Anderson travelled back to the broadcaster’s headquarters together.

Ms Buttrose and Mr Anderson did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

An ABC spokesman declined to comment, noting the matter was still before the courts.

“It would be inappropriate for the ABC to comment while proceedings are under way,” he said.

The case returns to court before Justice Daryl Rangiah on February 27 for closing arguments.