Antoinette Lattouf’s unfair dismissal win shows ABC must be more courageous in defending its journalists

Broadcast journalist Antoinette Lattouf was sacked by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for her political opinions concerning the war in Gaza, the Federal Court has found.

Lattouf has been awarded $70,000 in damages for non-economic loss, based on findings that her sacking caused her what the judge called “great distress”.

Justice Darryl Rangiah said this was obvious from her demeanour in the witness box. She had given evidence of feeling shock and humiliation at being sacked, and that this had affected her sleep and put strain on her personal relationships.

However, the court found Lattouf’s race or ethnicity had played no part in the ABC’s decision to sack her, as she had claimed.

The decision to sack her had been made by Chris Oliver-Taylor, who at the time was chief content officer of the ABC. His decision had been fortified by the views of the then managing director and editor-in-chief of the ABC, David Anderson, that Lattouf had expressed antisemitic opinions.

The court found Oliver-Taylor was under pressure from many sources: the external complaints, Anderson’s view of the matter, and the wishes of the then chair Ita Buttrose to put an end to it.

There was also a desire to appease the pro-Israel lobby, to defend the ABC’s reputation for impartiality, and to mitigate the impact of a story that he knew The Australian newspaper was about to publish on the issue.

Oliver-Taylor has since resigned^[1] from the ABC.

The case arose from events that occurred in December 2023.

The ABC hired Lattouf, a journalist of Lebanese heritage, as a relief presenter on the mornings program of Sydney ABC Radio for one week leading up to Christmas. The mornings program consisted of light entertainment interspersed with hourly news bulletins. It did not otherwise offer news or current affairs content.

Lattouf had worked for the ABC previously and was well-regarded inside the organisation. Her appointment was uncontroversial among those involved in making it, and she started work on Monday December 18.

Before this stint began, Lattouf had made a series of personal social media posts accusing Israeli soldiers of using rape as a weapon of war. Then, early in the week she was on air, she posted on her personal social media profile a report by Human Rights Watch alleging Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Later, the ABC had posted this report on its own website.

Like the ABC, Lattouf posted it without comment.

However, an orchestrated campaign by the Jewish lobby to have her taken off air had already begun, on the basis of what she had previously published on her private social media account, and Justice Rangiah observed that this had caused consternation among senior ABC management.

This consternation turned to panic after the posting of the Human Rights Watch report, and the campaign intensified. A coordinated email campaign^[2] by a pro-Israel lobbying group called “Lawyers for Israel”, and another group called “J.E.W.I.S.H creatives and academics”, demanded Lattouf be sacked, threatening legal action if she was not.

Messages from a WhatsApp group leaked to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age showed that in this way, the campaigners put intense pressure on the ABC’s most senior officers at the time, Anderson and Buttrose.

On December 20, Lattouf was told when she came off air she would not be required for the final two days of her engagement. The Fair Work Commission subsequently found^[3] this amounted to sacking her. She then sued the ABC in the Federal Court for unlawful termination, alleging she had been dismissed because of her race and political views.

When the matter came before the Federal Court in February 2025, the ABC argued she had been dismissed not because of her race or political views but because she had disobeyed a lawful instruction not to post anything “controversial” on social media while working for the ABC.

The ABC alleged her act of disobedience was the posting of the Human Rights Watch report. In the course of the proceedings, emails between Anderson and Buttrose were admitted into evidence. They showed Buttrose telling Anderson she was “over” getting these complaints about Lattouf, and asking “can’t she come down with flu or COVID or a stomach upset? We owe her nothing.”

Giving evidence during the court hearing, Buttrose said she had proposed this as a face-saving device for Lattouf’s benefit.

In making a formal determination that Lattouf had been terminated, Justice Rangiah dismissed the ABC’s argument that she had simply been told there would be no work for her on the final two days of her contracted period of employment.

He also found Lattouf had not been instructed not to post on her social media account but had merely been told she would be ill-advised to publish anything “controversial” while on air.

In dismissing Lattouf for her political opinions, the ABC breached section 772 of the Fair Work Act, and by depriving her of an opportunity to defend herself before dismissing her it also breached the ABC’s enterprise bargaining agreement.

The question of whether the ABC should suffer a financial penalty for these breaches will be decided at a later date.

It was evident throughout the proceedings that the ABC had been concerned not just to put an end to the complaints about Lattouf but to protect the organisation’s reputation for impartiality.

In the event, the way the case was handled has done substantial damage to the ABC’s reputation, not just for impartiality but for its capacity to stand up for its journalists and presenters when they come under external attack.

Read more: Antoinette Lattouf sacking shows how the ABC has been damaged by successive Coalition governments^[4]

Lattouf is one of several journalists whom the ABC has failed to defend from attacks by politicians, pressure groups and News Corporation. The latter’s flagship newspaper, The Australian, has conducted virulent campaigns against ABC journalists, most notably Stan Grant, as well as Lattouf and others.

The managerial consternation and panic observed by Justice Rangiah in Lattouf’s case were discernible also in the Grant case and in the way the ABC handled the controversy over star journalist Laura Tingle’s observation^[5] at a writer’s festival that Australia was a racist country.

This is a cultural weakness in the ABC. Its editorial leadership seems not to understand that the first duty of an editor is to create a safe space in which their staff can do good journalism.

It is a malaise that goes back at least as far as the 2018 debacle in which a former chair, Justin Milne, and former managing director, Michelle Guthrie, showed themselves susceptible to pressure from the Turnbull government.

Both resigned within a few days of each other after a stream of sensational allegations^[6] leaked to the press about Milne allegedly calling on Guthrie to fire the chief economics correspondent, Emma Alberici, and the political editor, Andrew Probyn.

Perhaps the Lattouf case will at last stiffen their sinews and make standing up for their journalists a primary qualification for editorial leadership. The need for this cultural change seemed to be acknowledged by the recently appointed managing director and editor-in-chief, Hugh Marks, when he said in response to the court findings:

This matter has caused concerns to be expressed about the ABC’s independence and integrity, which are critical to the great trust the Australian public places in us. Any undue influence or pressure on ABC management of its employee must always be guarded against.

The Lattouf case also leaves unresolved the question of the extent to which a media organisation is entitled to place restrictions on a staff journalist’s private activities to protect its interests and reputation.

In this context, Marks said the ABC’s policies concerning the private use of social media by staff had been reviewed and would be replaced by new public comment guidelines.

This story has been updated to include a response from Hugh Marks, and to clarify the ABC posted the Human Rights Watch report after Lattouf.

References

1. ^{^} since resigned (www.abc.net.au)
2. ^{^} coordinated email campaign (www.smh.com.au)
3. ^{^} subsequently found (www.abc.net.au)
4. ^{^} Antoinette Lattouf sacking shows how the ABC has been damaged by successive Coalition governments (theconversation.com)
5. ^{^} Laura Tingle’s observation (www.theguardian.com)
6. ^{^} sensational allegations (www.theguardian.com)