Antoinette Lattouf v ABC hearing day six – as it happened​on February 11, 2025 at 6:07 am

The cross-examination of Buttrose was intense and at times feisty, but it was on the shorter side, and mercifully the hearing has caught up to its own schedule – meaning it is likely to conclude tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will hear from the remaining three ABC witnesses: Simon Melkman, Ben Latimer and Elizabeth Green.

The hearing will resume at 10.15am on Wednesday. Thanks for your company.

The Australian ‘always interested’ in broadcaster

Buttrose said The Australian was “always interested” in what was happening at the ABC and added that the newspaper often misquoted her.

Boncardo: “You were aware on the 20th of December that there was interest from the Australian in Ms Lattouf’s engagement?”

“No, but The Australian are always interested in the ABC,” Buttrose said.

Buttrose denies that she was pleased Lattouf had been sacked, after she was shown an email from a complainant she forwarded to Anderson with the words “it’s nice to get congratulatory emails”.

The complainant had thanked Buttrose, Anderson and the board for making the “right decision to fire Ms Lattouf from the national broadcaster”.

Buttrose: “No one’s ever happy with a dismissal of anyone, it’s the worst thing that can happen to anybody. And I’m not happy. And I wasn’t happy. I didn’t wish her to be removed. I didn’t put pressure on anybody.”

Buttrose has finished giving evidence and has been excused.

The court has heard that on 21 December 2023 the ABC staff-elected director, Laura Tingle, wrote to Buttrose about her “deep concern” that the information about Lattouf’s sacking had been leaked to The Australian newspaper.

“Whether or not she breached the social media code, the fact that someone apparently senior briefed The Australian on it and (I suspect) verballed your actual role in any action taken on it, is almost as spectacular an error of judgement as any social media breach,” Tingle, the political editor of 7.30, wrote.

“It leaves both Antoinette and the ABC suffering reputational damage.

“But I am also most concerned that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, it has deeply unsettled staff who feel the ABC is not supporting them.

“A widely held view is ‘well, they hired her to do these shifts knowing what she had written/reported, and have now buckled in the face of pressure from the Israel lobby’.

“Unfortunately, it is now one of those stories where the facts have long been given a back seat to the perceptions.”

Buttrose says she just made ‘observations’ to Anderson

Buttrose is a confident witness, batting away questions with matter of fact answers.

She appears to be unfazed by what the ABC’s counsel has said is the “hectoring” tone of counsel for Lattouf.

Boncardo: “You were not happy with Mr Anderson’s response to your email, which he sent to you on 19 December?

Buttrose: “I made the point that I thought we should be in damage control rather than ‘managed exits’. I didn’t have to lose my temper with David Anderson. I just make observations to him.”

Justice Rangiah said he did not think it was hectoring.

Buttrose is making some accusations of her own, asserting that counsel for Lattouf is trying to establish that the ABC bowed to complaints from the pro-Israel lobby.

Boncardo: “Do you agree that if you removed Ms Lattouf from air, there would be claims the ABC had caved to pro-Israeli lobbying?”

Buttrose: “I know that you’ve been trying to make that inference here today.”

Suggesting Covid or flu was a ‘face-saving suggestion’

Buttrose denies writing emails to Anderson saying she wanted Lattouf taken off air and says when she sent an email asking whether Lattouf had been replaced, she was “asking for an update”.

Boncardo: “That is not truthful evidence, Ms Buttrose.”

Buttrose: “If I wanted somebody removed, I’d be franker than that.”

Buttrose said when she suggested to Anderson that Lattouf could come down with the the flu or Covid or a stomach upset, she was suggesting the presenter could use it as a “face-saving suggestion”, adding: “I just thought it might be easier for Antoinette”.

Buttrose said she expected Lattouf to lose her job because she was very experienced in the media and she could see what would happen. She had “upset the listeners of the ABC and we were looking into it”.

Buttrose says she was not so much concerned about Lattouf’s views on the Israel-Gaza war as she was about whether the ABC was not being impartial.

“She wasn’t presenting an impartial point of view, that’s what I inferred [from the complaints],” Buttrose said.

Buttrose agrees that some of the complainants who wrote to her had their facts wrong, for example that Lattouf was not reporting on the conflict in the Middle East.

Buttrose said listeners often got things wrong and just wrote to the ABC when they got angry.

She agreed that she did not support hiring “activists” to work for the ABC, but said she did not investigate whether Lattouf was in fact an activist.

Buttrose said she did not know Lattouf was Lebanese. “People’s colour doesn’t really worry me at all,” Buttrose said.

“She was a controversial broadcaster, and I think – in relation to the Gaza-Israel conflict – she was an activist, that was quite apparent.

“I drew the conclusion, and I don’t think we should have hired an activist of any kind, regardless of whatever view they held.”

Buttrose says impartiality ‘core business of the ABC’

Buttrose states her profession as journalist as she begins her cross-examination by Philip Boncardo, for Lattouf.

She agrees she was not involved in the day-to-day operational matters of the broadcaster, such as programming and selecting presenters.

Boncardo: “Were you familiar with the requirement for impartiality and diversity of perspectives under those editorial policies?

Buttrose: “I think impartiality is the core business of the ABC.”

Asked if she expected that a staffer “would be afforded procedural fairness” if they were alleged to have breached a policy, Buttrose said she would not answer a hypothetical question.

Buttrose: “It’s a hypothetical question, and I can’t answer it.”

Buttrose is speaking now

Ita Buttrose, former ABC chair, is in the witness box.

She has been called to give evidence on her role.

Buttrose left the ABC in March 2024 after five years in the role. She was replaced by former News Corp Australia chief executive Kim Williams.

Posting anything on Israel-Gaza war ‘automatically … controversial’: Ahern

Justice Rangiah is once again trying to ascertain what Ahern told Green to instruct Lattouf.

He asked Ahern if it “might have been possible for Ms Lattouf to post something about the Israel-Gaza war which was not controversial?”

Ahern: “Really, my interpretation of that would be, if that were to happen, that anything posted about the Israel-Gaza war would then have meant that we would have to take into account previous posts before she was working for us.

“So in that respect, to me, posting anything about the Israel-Gaza war would automatically have been controversial, because it would have been taken in a much wider context than just posting within that week.”

Lattouf told not to post anything suggesting ‘she’s not impartial’

Justice Rangiah is asking Ahern some clarifying questions following the completion of his cross-examination.

Rangiah: “Do you recall, though, what the instruction [to Lattouf] actually was?”

Ahern: “The instruction from Chris [Oliver-Taylor] was that she shouldn’t post anything that would suggest she’s not impartial.”

Rangiah: “Yes, but does that suggest that any instruction you gave to Ms Green was to tell Ms Lattouf not to post anything controversial about Israel-Gaza?

Ahern: “I was comfortable that if Elizabeth [Green] was telling me she had a conversation and that she’d asked Antoinette not to post anything controversial, that that was the same meaning in the context of everything that we know about our policies and guidelines.

“For instance, I think Antoinette posted earlier in the week a photo of herself with the ABC Sydney logo. I would say that that was not controversial.”

Ahern recounts Lattouf conversation

The court has resumed with Ahern in the witness box to complete his evidence. We are already running over schedule as Ahern was supposed to finish before lunch and Ita Buttrose was supposed to have started giving hers.

Lattouf’s junior counsel, Philip Boncardo, is taking Ahern through the day Lattouf was sacked in December 2023 and what was said in the conversation.

“Ms Lattouf said something to the effect of: ‘but I asked Elizabeth, she told me, I could post … if it was from a reputable source. We talked about examples like Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists’,” Boncardo put to Ahern. “Did she say that?”

Ahern: “Yes, she said that, that’s true.”

Court adjourned for lunch

The court has adjourned until 2.15pm after a full morning of evidence from Steve Ahern, who told the court he did not use the word “direction” when he told a manager to speak to Lattouf about her social media posting.

Ahern will return briefly to the witness box to complete his cross-examination.

Ita Buttrose is in the building and will begin giving evidence after lunch. The court has scheduled her for two hours.

Buttrose entered the federal court in a wheelchair after undergoing a back operation in 2023.

‘I don’t think I phrased it as a direction’: court hears how Lattouf was advised about social media posts

Ahern has told the court thathe did not think he usedthe word “direct” when asking Lattouf’s line manager, Elizabeth Green, to instruct the presenter to restrict her social media activity while on air.

A key part of the case is whether Lattouf breached a direction by the ABC not to post on Israel-Gaza at all.

“I don’t think I phrased it as a direction because it was clear from Chris Oliver-Taylor’s first email what was involved,” Ahern says.

Boncardo: “So your evidence now is you didn’t phrase it as a direction?”

Ahern: “Yeah, that’s true. I don’t think I used the word directed to [mean]: I direct you to tell her not to post.”

Asked about management’s criticism of his appointment of Lattouf, Ahern says he was not surprised but was “disappointed by the characterisation” he had made an ill-informed decision, “but that’s the way these things go”.

Boncardo: “You had never been told by Mr Latimer, Mr Oliver-Taylor, or anyone else to tell Ms Green, or someone else from your area, to tell Ms Lattouf not to post to socials at all?”

Ahern: “In that wording, I had not been told in that way.”

Boncardo: “So Mr Latimer was plainly wrong when he said the clear instructions were to direct Antoinette not to post to socials for the rest of this week?”

Ahern said not in those words, “as a direction”, but the understanding for him and Green was “very clear”.

The former chair of the ABC Ita Buttrose has arrived at the federal court in Sydney ahead of giving evidence in the Antoinette Lattouf unlawful termination case.

Buttrose is a key witness in the hearing, which is on its sixth day of hearing evidence.

She is due to give evidence next, after Steve Ahern, the former head of ABC Sydney local radio. Ahern hired Lattouf for five days in December 2023.