If one thing has emerged from journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s quixotic battle with the ABC over her sacking 14 months ago, it is that the public broadcaster appears to be so weighed down by procedures, policy codes and guidelines that even senior management can’t keep up.
“The whole exercise was completely abnormal from start to finish,” mused Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir.
“Yes,” agreed the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson.
Anderson is just a few weeks from retirement, a reluctant star witness in a court case that has lasted longer than Lattouf’s brief spell on air.
All ABC staff are subjected to multiple layers of oversight. Anderson told the court the policing of standards, including impartiality, is not “arbitrary”, but ultimately comes down to “judgment”.
He hoped to explain how ABC stars such as Laura Tingle, John Lyons, Paul Barry – even new chair Kim Williams – have avoided sanction, despite making public comments on contentious issues in ways that Anderson said might be perceived as failing the corporation’s impartiality rules.
An example given was Tingle telling a writers’ festival “Australia is a racist country; it always has been”. Anderson said he believed that was factually accurate, even if contentious.
Another example was global affairs editor Lyons’ assessment of this very case: that the ABC had bowed to “a group of lawyers lobbying for a foreign power”.
The ABC denies that framing, but Anderson acknowledged what he called a “campaign” of complaints about Lattouf from the first day of her five scheduled on-air shifts.
It came from a pro-Israel lobby group, whose members have had their names suppressed by the federal court for 10 years to protect them from vilification and harassment.
“The wording was exactly the same in every email,” recalled Anderson. “It just looked like copy and paste of material that was coming through.”
By that Monday evening, Anderson told the court, he made his own investigation of Lattouf’s social media history.
He said he told his direct subordinate, Chris Oliver-Taylor, that the feed was “full of antisemitic hatred”.
Cross-examined on that point, Anderson admitted most of the antisemitic material was other people replying to Lattouf’s posts.
He said Lattouf’s criticisms challenged the existence of Israel, “which I do believe to be antisemitic”. Presssed again, he said the post had referred to the “unlawful occupation of Palestine”.
Lattouf has long been outspoken in her support of Palestinian human rights. The court heard that Anderson was unhappy she had been hired.
“I think her appointment to being host of mornings was a mistake,” he said in testimony.
He worried that she might express what he described as “partisan” views – or even take calls on Sydney talkback radio about a subject he described as “contentious”.
In emails tabled to the court, then ABC chair Ita Buttrose told Anderson she was “over” receiving complaints about Lattouf, and wondered why she “couldn’t come down with flu or Covid or a stomach upset” and be taken off air.
However, Anderson told the court he was convinced his subordinate managers had mitigated the risk. The court heard Lattouf’s immediate manager, Elizabeth Green, had advised – or directed – Lattouf (the case appears largely to turn on which verb applies) not to post about Gaza while on air.
Lattouf then posted a Human Rights Watch report that claimed that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war. The ABC website had carried the same report.
Lattouf was then taken off air by Oliver-Taylor. She was paid but told not to return for her two remaining shifts.
About that decision, Anderson said, “Frankly, [it] was a surprise to me. I didn’t expect that at all.”
Oliver-Taylor, who was still giving evidence at the time of writing, says he was between a “rock and a hard place” when it came to Lattouf’s position as a casual presenter on ABC Radio Sydney, adding he was receiving “pressure from above” about Lattouf’s appointment.
Anderson conceded to the court that, trekking through the deep thickets of the ABC’s rules and codes, steps had been missed.
For one thing, personal social media use was not covered by the ABC’s editorial policies but by separate guidelines managed at a lower level. And if the case was being made that Lattouf had disobeyed a lawful management direction, that would require a referral to the ABC’s People and Culture section. A misconduct investigation would have to be launched. Lattouf would be entitled to a right of reply.
None of those things happened.
The federal court case – at who knows what cost – is not over. It is running way over schedule, and we are yet to hear from Buttrose.
Even if Lattouf wins, it is not clear if she can find her way back to presenting jobs at the ABC or anywhere else. Perhaps her speaking gigs will no longer be “mysteriously” cancelled. A larger question is the potential impact on hiring policies at the ABC, particularly with its commitment to staff diversity.
Hugh Riminton is national affairs editor at Channel 10
Disclosure: Hugh Riminton worked with Antoinette Lattouf at Channel 10 and was an early advisory board member for her not-for-profit Media Diversity Australia. He has also worked with Ita Buttrose, and has appeared on ABC radio programs managed by others named in the court process.
