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Allegedly sacked former ABC presenter Antoinette Lattouf has appeared at another hearing at the Fair Work Commission in her ongoing unfair dismissal case, hours before the national broadcaster’s managing director was grilled at Senate estimates over the issue.
Lattouf alleges she was unfairly dismissed by the ABC in December last year after taking to Instagram to repost Human Rights Watch reporting on the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Lattouf alleges her employment was terminated on the grounds of her political opinion, and that her race was a contributing factor.
On Tuesday morning the commission heard arguments about whether the ABC should have to produce any communications relating to Lattouf between managing director David Anderson, chair Ita Buttrose and members of the public, as well as communications between the broadcaster and journalists at The Australian, which published an article on the matter within an hour of Lattouf herself being told not to return for the final two shifts of her contract. Lattouf’s team, led by Maurice Blackburn employment law principal Josh Bornstein and Sydney barrister Christopher Parkin, also sought communications from Sydney silk Robert Goot, who is alleged to have “agitated for Lattouf’s dismissal”, to the ABC.
Goot was contacted for comment but didn’t respond in time for publication.
Crikey attended a sparsely populated hearing in Sydney’s inner-east, with much of the city’s media reporting cohort presumed to be across town at Lisa Wilkinson’s costs claim hearing against Network Ten in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation matter. Only three other reporters joined Crikey in the public gallery, where some entertaining pre-trial water cooler conversation was overheard.
With the final episode of the ABC’s Nemesis airing overnight, lawyers in the case were discussing the Coalition’s greatest hits and misses of the 2010s when the conversation turned to former prime minister Tony Abbott.
“Oh my god, the onion” is a hell of a thing to hear before “please stand” in a landmark employment law case.
Thus began an hour or so of legal argument, with the ABC arguing that Lattouf’s case was mired in “pure subjectivity”.
Ian Neil SC, acting for Aunty, submitted that the termination of employment was a legal act, assessed “exclusively objectively”. At one point, Neil referred to arguments put forward for Lattouf as “legally incoherent”.
In doing so, Neil cited WorkPac v Rossato, a landmark 2021 High Court decision concerning the nature of casual employment — a case in which Neil and Parkin worked together appearing for WorkPac as the successful appellant.
Lattouf’s team, in response, argued that the contents of the alleged meetings and documentation between ABC management were material to the commission being able to make a finding with regard to the unfair dismissal claim. Lattouf’s team argued that discussions around her employment were “manifestly probative” as to a finding made on the facts of the case, and pointed to the speed with which The Australian was able to publish its story on the case. Lattouf’s team also argued that the factual matrix of events in the case manifested an “intention not to be bound by the [employment] contract” on behalf of the ABC.
Lattouf told media outside the Fair Work Commission that the ABC was seeking to “suppress … the airing of the facts”.
“What we’ve seen today is the ABC spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars trying to hide the truth,” she said.
Shortly afterwards, Anderson was grilled by Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, sitting on the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee.
Faruqi asked Anderson directly whether he had “ever heard of any journalist being terminated for sharing a fact”, in reference to Lattouf’s social media movements prior to her alleged dismissal from the broadcaster. Anderson would not comment on the ongoing case, seeking to submit a public interest immunity claim with respect to the line of questioning.
Faruqi further pressed Anderson, asking why he was “going to hide away [and] not answer the question”.
Anderson responded that for him to remark on the matter or respond to Faruqi’s line of questioning would “prejudice the [commission] process as it should actually happen”.
ABC editorial director Gavin Fang, appearing alongside Anderson, told the committee that the broadcaster had received 3,000 complaints since October 7 related to the conflict in Israel, most relating to bias. Fang told the committee 58% of those complaints charged the ABC with a pro-Israel bias, and 42% with a pro-Palestinian bias.
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