Day five of Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful termination case resumes in the Federal Court after the judge said the trial was behind schedule and he was looking at whether extra days could be added.
Day five of Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful termination case resumes in the Federal Court after the judge said the trial was behind schedule and he was looking at whether extra days could be added.
Hello and welcome back to our coverage of the Antoinette Lattouf v ABC trial in the Federal Court.
I am Calum Jaspan, and today it’s day five of the proceedings, which just so happens to be the same length of time Lattouf was employed to fill in as a casual presenter on ABC Radio Sydney in December 2023. Proceedings will get under way at 9.30am AEDT.
Lattouf was sacked three days in, and has since claimed she was unlawfully terminated, which is where we find ourselves now.
So far this trial, we’ve heard both Lattouf and the ABC’s arguments, as well as lengthy cross-examinations of both Lattouf and the broadcaster’s outgoing managing director, David Anderson.
After ABC executives told Lattouf she was being taken off-air, Steve Ahern recounted the details of the meeting to Oliver-Taylor.
Oliver-Taylor was told Lattouf had been “advised not to post anything that could be perceived as controversial” on her socials, while with the ABC.
There is now some back and forth about whether there was a misunderstanding over the wording of the directive that was given to Lattouf, and whether she had been advised or directed not to post.
Oliver-Taylor says he did not go back to confirm this.
“I think in my view, those are the same thing. I felt that was the same thing,” he says.
Oliver-Taylor was not qualified to distinguish between what is and is not controversial content, in relation to the Israel-Gaza conflict, he says.
He says his recollection of the events was that he instructed Ben Latimer to direct Lattouf not to post anything about the Israel-Gaza war.
He says he believed this directive had been given to Lattouf, and this was done through Latimer’s staff.
During this Teams call and through discussion, Oliver-Taylor made the decision to take Lattouf off-air.
While there was agreement, he says “I am the senior person in that room”.
ABC’s outgoing chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor says he cannot recall if either the ABC’s head of audio Ben Latimer or ABC radio executive Steve Ahern thought there was a breach on the Microsoft Teams call.
“What about Simon [Melkman]?” Antoinette Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir asks.
Melkman was also on the Teams call.
“I think he would be the person who would say, potentially, there was not,” Oliver-Taylor says, regarding the position of the then-acting editorial director, the ABC’s subject-matter expert on its editorial guidelines.
“He was the one that was pushing back against the proposition?” Fagir asks.
“I’m not. I can’t be categorical, sir, but I would believe that, yes,” Oliver-Taylor says.
“My concern was about what was being posted,” the ABC’s content boss Chris Oliver-Taylor says, rather than being concerned about what the directives he believed to have been given to Antoinette Lattouf were.
Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir is asking Oliver-Taylor about a Microsoft Teams call on December 20, 2023. On this call was Oliver-Taylor, the ABC’s head of audio Ben Latimer, and radio executive Steve Ahern. Elizabeth Green joined the call at some point, Fagir says.
During this meeting, Oliver-Taylor formed the view Lattouf had breached the ABC’s social media guidelines, he confirms, when asked by Fagir.
Asked if he believes that is the case today, Oliver-Taylor says: “I think it’s difficult, but I think it could absolutely have been a breach of the social media guidelines.”
We’re back from the lunch break.
The ABC’s outgoing head of content Chris Oliver-Taylor says more due diligence should have been done regarding hiring Antoinette Lattouf, and ensuring she was appropriate to be taking on a live broadcast that time, with the war being “as we all recall, being so hot in the media”.
Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir has now turned to an email sent by Ben Latimer, the ABC’s head of audio, to Oliver-Taylor on December 20, 2023, flagging an Instagram post Lattouf had made regarding Israel-Gaza.
This post was the Human Rights Watch post.
As we near the end of the week of proceedings, it’s important to note both sides made repeated attempts to settle this case at different points.
As my colleague Colin Kruger wrote on Wednesday, the ABC was making attempts to reach a cash settlement as recently as this past weekend.
And last July, I reported an offer that Antoinette Lattouf’s team had submitted to the ABC, including compensation of $85,000, a public apology and reinstatement to her role as a fill-in radio presenter on ABC Radio.
“In my opinion, at that point, nothing had changed, apart from now the chair was directly writing to me, the chair’s office, directly forwarding more and more and more concerns and naming me as a respondent. That raised my concern,” Oliver-Taylor says.
Before this comment, Oliver-Taylor says his team had created “scaffolding” around Lattouf to keep her on air, and to hold that position, but due to the pressure from the chair, that position was becoming harder to hold.
The court has now adjourned until 2.15pm.
“I do think we’ll keep getting these complaints until Antoinette leaves,” Buttrose wrote in another email to Oliver-Taylor.
Oliver-Taylor says he was between a “rock and a hard place”, due to the pressure he was receiving, and the advice he had been given.
Eventually he says their position to keep Lattouf on air was becoming “harder and harder” to hold because complaints were being sent to him directly from the chair’s office.
Despite this pressure, Oliver-Taylor says he had no evidence or reason, at that point, to remove Lattouf.
It was late on Tuesday evening that Oliver-Taylor says he began receiving emails directly from Buttrose’s own email.
In the emails, Buttrose had nominated Oliver-Taylor directly as the person dealing with the matter. He tells the court he had “no idea why” she chose to do this.
“What I did know was that it will be unusual for the chair to write to me in this manner,” Oliver-Taylor says.
“I think the way that this was exercised through the chair writing to me and naming me, was I felt, unusual.”
On the Tuesday evening, David Anderson forwarded Oliver-Taylor an email from Ita Buttrose, where she asked “has she been replaced yet?”
After Anderson told Buttrose there would be a “managed exit”, Oliver-Taylor again says he does not know what this term means.
After subsequent emails from Buttrose noting they owed Lattouf “nothing”, Oliver-Taylor advised the blowback from taking her off-air “would be phenomenal”.
“I didn’t like the comments from the chair, but I have no context for them,” Oliver-Taylor says.
Anderson told him to hold their position, but that he was just “sharing the pain”.