The Fair Work Commission has found Antoinette Lattouf was sacked from a casual presenting role on ABC local radio, paving the way for the journalist to pursue an unlawful termination case.
Lattouf was taken off air three days into a five-day casual contract in December after she posted on social media about the Israel-Gaza war, which the ABC said was a breach of editorial policy.
The ABC’s position was that Lattouf’s employment was not actually terminated, because she was paid for the full five days. But the commission rejected that view.
“In this case, I find that the employment relationship between the applicant and the ABC, was terminated at the ABC’s initiative,” the deputy president of the commission, Gerard Boyce, said in his judgement handed down on Monday morning.
Boyce found that Lattouf was terminated at a meeting on 20 December and told it was because “she had been told not to make social media posts for the whole of the five days she would be presenting on the show, but she did so anyway”.
The judgment said the executive in charge of Lattouf’s employment, content director Chris Oliver-Taylor, sent a text to the ABC managing director, David Anderson, on 20 December saying he was going to take Lattouf off air.
The text said: “Confirming my view is that she has breached our editorial policies whilst in our employment. She also failed to follow a direction from her producer [Elizabeth Green] not to post anything whilst working with the ABC. As a result of this, I have no option but to stand her down. Call me if you can, but if not possible, I will action within the hour”.
The commission heard Oliver-Taylor had been told on 18 December by Anderson that he had received external email complaints about Lattouf’s position on the Israel-Gaza war and asked radio management to “ensure that Antoinette is not and has not been posting anything that would suggest she is not impartial”.
“I am concerned her public views may mean that she is in conflict with our own editorial policies … Can we also advise why we selected Antoinette as stand in host?”
The commission found Lattouf was asked to keep a low profile on social media and she agreed – except for posting “facts from reputable sources”.
However, there was some confusion over whether the manager had advised Lattouf it would be best to make no social media posts at all for the rest of the week or had been “directed” not to make any posts, the commission said.
The commission addressed the media interest in the case, but found it was not relevant to the findings.
The judgment said the Australian newspaper asked about Lattouf’s employment at 1.30pm on the day she was sacked and the ABC replied at 2pm: “ABC Sydney casual presenter Antoinette Lattouf will not be back on air for her remaining two shifts this week.” Lattouf had been told she was being taken off air at 12.45pm.
The commission said it was unnecessary to deal with Lattouf’s alternative arguments, that she was dismissed for her political opinion and her race, because the primary claim that she had been sacked was found.
The ABC has strongly denied Lattouf’s dismissal was the result of outside pressure on the broadcaster, after the Age reported that it had seen a chain of leaked WhatsApp messages showing a campaign from pro-Israel lobbyists to have Lattouf sacked days before her dismissal.
Lattouf is suing the ABC in the federal court for breaching its employee enterprise agreement by “sacking her without a proper basis and without due process”.
Lattouf is seeking “reinstatement, compensation, pecuniary penalties against the ABC and orders that ABC management undergo training to ensure they comply with their EA obligations”.
The ABC said it would defend the claims in the federal court.
“The ABC has not acted on the basis of Ms Lattouf’s political opinion, race and/or national extraction or social origin,” an ABC statement said. “In response to the claim before the commission, the ABC maintains that it acted on the basis of a belief that Ms Lattouf had not complied with a direction in relation to her use of social media. Those matters were not the subject of today’s decision.”
Lattouf said she was pleased with the finding but remains “bitterly disappointed” she was “fired for posting a fact the ABC itself was also reporting, namely a report of Human Rights Watch about starvation used as a tool of war’.
“I believe the ABC’s challenge was a waste of taxpayers’ money, causing unnecessary delays in my pursuit of truth and justice,” she said.
“I remain committed to achieving a just outcome in this matter, for me and a free and fair press. An unprecedented amount of journalists have been targeted and killed in Palestine. Countless journalists in Australia are also under attack. The truth isn’t always convenient or comfortable, but it doesn’t stop being factual.”
