00:00This was a perfect storm or a one-off that led to this unlawful termination of Antoinette
00:08Latouffe in December 2023.
00:10So for context here, she was three days into a five-day radio presenting stint with ABC
00:17Radio Sydney when she was taken off the air.
00:20Now in June this year, the Justice found that that was an unlawful termination saying that
00:26she was removed off the air because of her political opinions opposing Israeli military
00:32campaign in Gaza.
00:34And that's because she had made a post onto her Instagram sharing a post from the Human
00:39Rights Watch which claimed that Israel was using starvation as a tool of war.
00:46Now the Justice found that the ABC did not give Antoinette Latouffe an explicit direction
00:52not to post online as they claimed.
00:54But instead, they gave her general advice to avoid such controversial topics like the
00:59Israel-Gaza conflict.
01:01Now today, this hearing was about what penalties should be imposed on the ABC who were found
01:06to have contravened the Fair Work Act by taking her off the air.
01:09Now Ms Latouffe has already been awarded $70,000 in compensation.
01:14The ABC today said that the perfect storm that eventuated in that situation back in December
01:212023, which was a campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists, an email campaign put towards some of the
01:28upper echelons of the ABC at the time to remove Ms Latouffe off the air.
01:33But more particularly, the heightened emotion of the person they say was the sole decision
01:38maker in taking Ms Latouffe off the air.
01:40That was ABC's head of content at the time, Chris Oliver-Taylor, who made the decision
01:45to sack Ms Latouffe.
01:47They say there was heightened emotion there and a misunderstanding of the enterprise agreement
01:52at the time.
01:53That would have been seen as contravening the Fair Work Act and that Mr Oliver-Taylor was
01:58not aware at the time that he had been doing that.
02:01They say that perfect storm, it's unreasonable to expect that that perfect storm would ever
02:05eventuate, again, for the ABC, but also for any other media organisations, because they
02:09need to argue against the general deterrent here.
02:12They don't want to be fined the maximum penalty, which could go up to around $500,000.
02:17They want to see a penalty between $36,000 to $56,000 imposed onto the ABC, whereas Ms Latouffe's
02:24legal team say that the penalty should be somewhere between $300,000 to $350,000.
02:29In total, if you put up together all those different contraventions, they argue, had taken
02:35place here, and they want to see the ABC also show more genuine contrition for what
02:41has taken place here and the effects that it has had on Ms Latouffe, because they argue
02:45there was no apology ever granted to Ms Latouffe in this case.
02:48And so who gave evidence today and what were they asked?
02:50Yeah, the person who gave evidence today was the Chief People Officer of the ABC, Dina
02:55Amorelli.
02:56She was asked specifically about what the response has been by the ABC since this judgment
03:00was handed down early this year.
03:02They asked her about specific training that was provided, a one-hour session, which Ms Amorelli
03:07was actually conducting herself and giving to some of the higher-ups in the ABC.
03:13That includes the boards.
03:15They said that she conducted around three one-hour training sessions, which was the same training
03:20session three times to a group of people to try and teach them about what happened here
03:25and then we also saw some of the slideshows that were presented there.
03:29The argument for Ms Latouffe's lawyers is that it's not a sufficient enough response to
03:34the findings by the Justice Darrell Rangia.
03:40They also asked her as well if she was aware that anyone who was purporting to represent the
03:45ABC had actually reached out personally to Ms Latouffe to offer that apology.
03:50She said she was not aware, to her knowledge, of anyone doing that specifically.
03:55A big argument as well was the immediate reaction that was given by the now managing director,
04:00Hugh Marks, who was not the managing director at the time of Ms Latouffe's termination and
04:04that was a statement that was issued on the same day that the judgment was handed down,
04:09essentially saying that they apologised for how the termination was handled.
04:13And the Ms Latouffe's lawyers argue that that's not real contrition, that's not a personal
04:18apology to their client and they say that the recklessness of the breaching of the Fair
04:27Worked Act is demonstrated in the fact that they don't seem to want to change anything
04:32and rather that this was just simply a human error made by one particular person, in this
04:36case that's Mr Oliver Taylor, who the justice did find was the decision maker in this case.
04:42However, Justice Rangia did also find that there was pressure on Oliver Taylor from some
04:49of the senior management at the time.
04:50That included the chair of the ABC, Ida Buttrose, who had forwarded some of those complaints on
04:54to then managing director, David Anderson, and David Anderson himself, who had expressed
04:58an opinion on Ms Latouffe and what he perceived to be anti-Semitic views that she may hold.
05:05And that all came together in what they said was a perfect storm in seeing Mr Oliver Taylor
05:10terminating the contract of Antoinette Latouffe and Ms Latouffe's lawyers say that the penalty
05:16that should be imposed is upwards of $350,000 and at the moment the justice has reserved
05:22his decision in that matter, but we do know the ABC has already spent upwards of $1 million
05:28in defending this case.
05:29And I think we can hear from Antoinette Latouffe now.
05:33I am surprised and disappointed that despite the ABC spending in excess of $2 million of
05:40taxpayer money, wasting $2 million of taxpayer money, that they still believe that the penalty
05:46should be as little as $36,000.
05:47And like I said, the justice has reserved his decision now.
05:52He will now consider some of those arguments.
05:54It was a long-running hearing.
05:55I don't think many, even the justice himself, expected today's hearing to go for the entire
06:00day, but it did, and they still missed some of the arguments they wanted to make.
06:03So there will be some written submissions that are still yet to be made to the justice.
06:07We believe that will be concluded on Monday, at the end of close of business on Monday,
06:12and there will still be some time for the justice to come back and give down his decision on
06:17exactly how much the ABC must pay for those contraventions against the Fair Work Act.
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