Journalist Antoniette Lattouf yet to get a personal apology from ABC

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Lawyers for the ABC have told the Federal Court there is no sensible possibility the ABC will ever again be presented with the perfect storm which led to Antoinette Lattouf's unlawful sacking. The Federal Court is now considering what financial penalty should be imposed on the public broadcaster for contravening the fair work act by taking Ms Lattouf off the air in December 2023.

Transcript

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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