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‘That’s not frank at all’: Ita Buttrose commands court in Lattouf case

By Harriet Alexander
Updated

As Ita Buttrose was wheeled into the courtroom, her wide eyes scanning the court, it was clear she did not like what she saw.

“I’d like to take her out to dinner,” Cold Chisel first sang in the song they named after her 45 years ago. “But when I think about the places I’ve been, I’d probably hold my fork all wrong.”

Former ABC chair Ita Buttrose leaves the Federal Court on Tuesday after giving evidence.

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

Justice Darryl Rangiah hastily adjourned to get his cutlery in order, and no less than five people rose from their seats and fussed to her needs at the witness stand. She gestured for the half-empty water glass left by the previous witness to be taken away.

The former ABC chair brought no pleasure to the task of explaining her role in the termination of casual radio presenter Antoinette Lattouf in December 2023, such as it was, so she might as well have a clean desk.

It is Lattouf’s case that the ABC acted under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, which had been sending copious complaints to Buttrose, managing director David Anderson and other board members for the duration of her employment.

Buttrose took a dim view of that interpretation. She clasped her hands together in front of her chin and blinked rapidly at her interlocutor, Lattouf’s barrister, Philip Boncardo. “No,” she said.

But she was certainly agitated at the time she started receiving the complaints as to how a person who had posted so extensively about the conflict had been hired in the first place.

“How on earth did it happen that an activist has ended up hosting ABC radio?” Buttrose asked Anderson, according to his affidavit.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

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According to Anderson, she declared over his protests that she would henceforth forward all the complaints she was receiving to chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor, and followed up that night with another email: “Has Antoinette been replaced. I am over getting emails about her.”

ABC boss David Anderson and former chair Ita Buttrose exchanged a string of late-night messages about dismissing Antoinette Lattouf (right).

ABC boss David Anderson and former chair Ita Buttrose exchanged a string of late-night messages about dismissing Antoinette Lattouf (right).Credit: Alex Ellinghausen, Louise Kennerley.

But Buttrose denied on Tuesday afternoon that it was her idea to forward the complaints she was receiving to Oliver-Taylor, claiming that, in fact, it was Anderson who had directed her to do so, to illustrate to Oliver-Taylor the “folly” of hiring people without adequate checks. The email that Buttrose sent to Anderson asking whether Lattouf had been sacked yet had simply been an update enquiry, she said.

“I’m asking, ‘What’s going on, has Antoinette been replaced?’” she said. “If I wanted somebody removed, I would be franker than that.”

Boncardo challenged her: “You were pretty frank in that email.”

But Buttrose, who was schooled in frankness by media tycoon Kerry Packer, was unruffled.

“That’s not frank at all,” she replied.

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But Anderson had already resolved to support Oliver-Taylor’s decision to allow Lattouf to ride out her contract when this exchange took place, and he reiterated this to Buttrose in an email that described the process as a “managed exit”.

Buttrose has never been shy to offer her pearls of wisdom to Anderson. She told this masthead in 2020 that she gave him advice, and he could take it or leave it. “If I think he hasn’t heard me, I might tell him again next week,” she said then.

This time, the man seemed determined to make up his own mind. Buttrose was wrapping Christmas presents when she received this unwelcome update from Anderson.

Though it has not been admitted into evidence, it may be reasonably inferred that she immediately lost the end of her sticky tape and spent the next 34 minutes furiously scratching for it with her fingertips.

“I have a whole clutch more of complaints,” she replied at 10pm. “Why can’t she come down with flu? Or COVID. Or a stomach upset? We owe her nothing, we are copping criticism because she wasn’t honest when she was appointed.

“Managed exit. Really.”

Drawing Buttrose’s attention to this exchange on Tuesday, Boncardo feigned incredulity. “Can I ask if it was your practice in 2023 to suggest that employees come down with respiratory illnesses?”

Buttrose could not help laughing. It had been a face-saving suggestion, she said. “It would give her an easy exit, that’s all.”

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When Oliver-Taylor decided to terminate Lattouf the next day, following her new social media post, Buttrose had been shocked, she said, and certainly not happy as suggested by Boncardo.

“I didn’t put pressure on anybody. It’s a fantasy of your own imagination,” she said. “I had nothing to do with her dismissal.”

It was past 4pm and she was tiring of Boncardo. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered under her breath, as he paused to check some notes. When her evidence wrapped and Buttrose left the court, her supporter pushed her wheelchair quickly but just deftly enough to perhaps avoid accidentally running over somebody’s toes.

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Original URL: https://www.watoday.com.au/national/that-s-not-frank-at-all-ita-buttrose-commands-court-in-lattouf-case-20250211-p5lbb5.html