Antoinette Lattouf hearing day three – as it happened​on February 5, 2025 at 7:16 am

The hearing has ended for today. David Anderson will be back tomorrow at 10.45am to complete his cross-examination.

The court will sit a little later on Thursday and end at 4.30pm, Justice Darryl Rangiah says.

After Anderson, Chris Oliver-Taylor, the outgoing ABC content chief, will enter the witness box. Oliver-Taylor ultimately made the decision to take Antoinette Lattouf off air.

Anderson said in his evidence today that in hindsight Oliver-Taylor should have taken more advice before making his decision but that ultimately it might not have changed the outcome.

If Mr Oliver-Taylor had his time over again, he might have sought additional advice from other people before he made his decision.

Thanks for joining me on the blog today. Good night.

Antoinette Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir, has now asked David Anderson what action he took against staffers who made what he said were “contentious” statements.

He gave examples of the ABC chief political correspondent, Laura Tingle, saying Australia is a racist country, the former Media Watch host Paul Barry saying “Israel is killing journalists again” and the ABC chair, Kim Williams, criticising the Coalition’s energy policy. Guardian Australia reported on Tingle’s comments last year.

The question leads to an extraordinary exchange in which Anderson says that Australia is a racist country so it is not an impartial statement.

It’s not an impartial statement because it’s based in fact.

I don’t know how you can deny racism in this country.

Anderson says he wasn’t aware of Barry or Williams’ statements but Tingle had been sanctioned for some comments that were made alongside the racist country statement.

He says:

That statement was not what I had a problem with.

He agrees it was Tingle’s comment about the Coalition pressing hot buttons on race and that being very dangerous for the community.

For that, Anderson says: “She was not taken off air, but she was sanctioned … for undermining her effectiveness at work”.

So she was counselled because she was not meeting the standards that I would expect of someone in that role speaking publicly.

I believed that she was undermining her effectiveness at work and to be able to do her job.

Anderson says he recalls Patricia Karvelas has made comments about the Murdoch press, as part of its business model writing hit pieces about ABC journalists.

“I don’t think it’s contentious for news organisations to talk about themselves,” Anderson says, adding that he didn’t have enough information to assess it as a partial or impartial viewpoint.

Anderson asked to compare public statements of Lattouf and Tingle

Fagir has put to Anderson that there were “ABC employees who have made public statements which are not impartial in relation to contentious issues” and he has done nothing about it.

Anderson replies:

Action has happened.

Fagir follows up with:

Isn’t this the situation? Ms Lattouf can’t make a public statement which is not impartial, but Laura Tingle can. That’s the fact of the matter, isn’t it?”

And Anderson responds:

It was a different matter, and that was dealt with at the time.

Anderson has some regrets over way Lattouf matter was handled

Anderson has expressed some regret about the way the Lattouf matter was handled by the ABC, saying there was a “step missing” and Lattouf should have been given a chance to explain herself.

He says he thought his content chief, Chris Oliver-Taylor, was a competent manager but if he had his time over he may have sought additional advice.

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing,” Anderson tells the court, adding that it would have been useful to talk to Lattouf to find out what the motivation behind her social media post was.

“I think there’s a step in the middle, of a discussion with Ms Lattouf, to ensure that they’ve sought the right advice from employee relations and people and culture as part of that decision.”

Anderson agrees that under the ABC’s enterprise agreement, a misconduct allegation would be put to the employee.

Fagir: “Do you agree or disagree with this proposition: At the ABC it is misconduct if an employee wilfully disobeys or disregards a lawful and reasonable direction?”

Anderson says after an allegation was put to the employee, a process would follow.

Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir, is asking David Anderson whether he agrees that the ABC has no entitlement to regulate the social media activity of its employees if it does not impact the editorial content.

Fagir asks:

Would you agree with this proposition: the ABC seeks to regulate its employees’ private conduct on social media only to the extent that it impacts on the editorial content to which they contribute?

Anderson replies:

No, I don’t subscribe to that.

Fagir then follows up:

Can I suggest to you that the ABC does not have nor does it claim any broader entitlement to regulate its employees’ expressions of their political or other opinions in their own time?

Anderson responds:

No, we can’t regulate what they do. We can judge what they do afterwards, though we can’t regulate what they do. People can have freedoms. They’ll do what they want on social media. So we can’t regulate what they do.

‘ABC does not deny existence of any race’, silk argues

Before David Anderson was called to the witness box the ABC sought to clarify a point made by Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir, in his opening statement on Monday, that the broadcaster rejected Lattouf’s claim of racial discrimination, because she has not proven being Lebanese, Middle Eastern or Arab is a race.

Ian Neil SC tells the court:

The ABC does not deny the existence of any race. I repeat that the ABC does not deny the existence of any race.

“The point being made there is, that this is an issue in respect of which the applicant has an onus, and that she has not equipped the court with any evidence upon which to resolve that issue, please,” Neil says.

“There is no evidence consistent with the hypothesis that race or national extraction had anything to do with any matter under consideration in these proceedings.”

‘I will find you and end you’: vicious death threat against Lattouf revealed in court documents

Earlier today, in an affidavit released by the court, Lattouf detailed dozens of death threats and abusive and threatening messages she had allegedly received since December 2023 when she hosted ABC radio’s Sydney Mornings program.

One alleged threat was made by an anonymous man who telephoned Lattouf and said: “I will find you and end you and shut your antisemitic mouth once and for all.”

Reporters Ben Doherty and Amanda Meade have got the main developments from court this morning.

After lunch, David Anderson, the broadcaster’s outgoing managing director, begins his evidence.

Anderson is explaining the various rules which govern ABC employees, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act, ABC Charter, code of practice, editorial policies and code of conduct. These are all instruments that contain rules which apply to ABC employees.

He is being cross-examined by Antoinette Lattouf’s barrister, Oshie Fagir.

ABC executives set up online meeting and made decision to take Lattouf off air

Ian Neil SC then takes his honour to the reversal of the ABC’s decision to initially not take Antoinette Lattouf off air, which was triggered by a social media post about Gaza.

The court heard that the radio chief, Ben Latimer, discovered that Lattouf had shared a post by Human Rights Watch on her Instagram account on Tuesday.

“In a separate stream of events, on Wednesday the 20th of December it came to the attention of Mr Latimer that Lattouf had posted, as he put it, regarding Israel-Gaza, the day before,” Neil says. “That was, of course, the Human Rights Watch post that your honour has already seen amongst others.”

The evidence has shown that Lattouf reposted a report from Human Rights Watch as a story on her Instagram account, and she added additional text reading ‘HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war’, according to court documents.

Neil says Chris Oliver-Taylor called an online executive meeting and together the team decided Lattouf would be taken off air because of the post.

Neil tells the court:

It is our submission that Mr Oliver-Taylor has described an entirely reasonable, rational and compelling basis for his [decision]. He didn’t take it alone, of course, he took it in consultation with others.

Mr Ahern was given the responsibility, or the task, of communicating the decision to Ms Lattouf.

The hearing has adjourned and will return at 2.15pm.

Ian Neil SC is now taking his honour to the evening of 19 December when David “Anderson was called upon to deal with a plainly agitated chair”, that is one Ita Buttrose.

Anderson responded to Buttrose’s concern that she was still getting complaints from the public about Antoinette Lattouf and why couldn’t they take her off air.

According to Neil, Anderson wrote:

Dear Ita, Antoinette will finish up on Friday. It is a managed exit, given the situation. I can explain more tomorrow. I plan to respond to all those who’ve emailed on Friday afternoon.

Neil submits that neither this email, nor any of the correspondence between ABC executives, shows that “any trace, even a bat squeak of antipathy” to the “actual content of any opinions that Ms Lattouf might have”.

Neil says all the concern was around protecting the ABC’s integrity and impartiality.

“Mr Anderson was holding the line,” Neil says.