Text message unlocks truth about why Lattouf was taken off air, ABC silk argues
Ian Neil SC, for the ABC, said it is important for Justice Darryl Rangiah to get to the truth of why Antoinette Lattouf was taken off air.
Key to this, Neil says, is an understanding of a Microsoft Teams meeting between ABC managers and executives, including Lattouf’s line manager at Radio Sydney, Elizabeth Green, and the chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor.
Green said in her evidence that she told the Teams meeting Lattouf had not been given a direction not to post, but Neil said it was significant that nobody else in the meeting could recall that. Neil said:
That’s a powerful consideration to weigh against Ms Green’s recollection, leading to the conclusion that it’s an unresolvable factual issue.
Rangiah should instead, Neil said, rely on a text message sent from Oliver-Taylor to ABC managing director David Anderson two minutes after the meeting finished to understand what had occurred.
This was despite, Neil said, submissions by lawyers for Lattouf that Oliver-Taylor had misled Anderson in that message. Neil said:
We do reiterate, what earthly reason would he have for lying, misrepresenting, what he had been told … two minutes before, to his superior.
So what was written in that text message? My colleague Amanda Meade has posted about that right here.
Key events
Instagram post a ‘central fact’ in the case, Neil says
Ian Neil SC, for the ABC, is starting to emphasise the broadcaster’s defence: that Lattouf was only taken off the air because she made the Human Rights Watch post on Instagram.
He says it is a central fact in the case that the ABC considered until 11.07am on 20 December 2023 that Lattouf would continue working for the broadcaster until the end of her five-day contract.
Neil said that correspondence between senior ABC figures, including the managing director, David Anderson, and the former chair Ita Buttrose, showed that the “ABC had carefully weighed the competing risks and decided to keep Ms Lattouf on air until the Friday, having put in place … mitigating plans”.
Those plans, he said, included that Lattouf had been told not to post anything on social media regarding the conflict in Gaza. Those plans were made to protect Lattouf and the ABC, he said.
But shortly after that, he said, the Instagram post Lattouf made the previous evening was discovered.
Everything that happened, the decision that she would not be kept on air, that she would not be required on air on the Thursday and the Friday, that all flowed from that one changed fact, that one circumstance.
Neil also said the ABC story based on the same Human Rights Watch report that was the subject of Lattouf’s social media post was “much more balanced and nuanced”.
“It’s very clear it’s reporting the subject of the report rather than endorsing them,” he said.
You’ll recall from our earlier reporting, Lattouf was let go after three days into a five-day fill-in stint on ABC Radio Sydney’s Mornings program when she shared the post that said Israel had used starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza.
We’re back
Ian Neil SC is continuing oral closing submissions for the ABC.
Lunch break
We will see you back here around 2.15pm.
No evidence Lattouf’s departure from ABC linked to race, court told
Neil, for the ABC, says there is no evidence to support the hypothesis raised by Lattouf’s team that the decision for her to leave the broadcaster was partially due to her Lebanese heritage.
Lattouf’s lawyers submitted on Thursday that it was not the primary factor but had been a factor.
Neil said that Lattouf’s race was only mentioned twice in all the evidence, and neither of those occasions supported a contention that it contributed to her departure.
Neil has also again elaborated on the distinction between the ABC’s argument and Lattouf’s submissions regarding opinion.
He said the holding of an opinion is not significant, but how it is expressed is.
Neil gave the example of how it would be an unlawful for an employee to fire a staff member simply because they did not agree with their opinion, but it would be lawful if that staff member started espousing those beliefs to colleagues in a way which was offensive or unproductive.
Employers can’t be thought police. That’s the policy reason behind [the law].
So what was written in that text message?
Amanda Meade
The text message Rangiah is asked to rely on is from the chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, to the ABC managing director, David Anderson, and was sent at 12.29pm while the managing director was out to Christmas lunch with Ita Buttrose.
The content chief tells Anderson it “looks like” Lattouf has “breached editorial impartiality” but he has yet to confirm.
He follows that text up with another saying “confirming my view that she has breached our editorial policies whilst in our employment”.
“She also failed to follow a direction from her manager not to post anything whilst working with the ABC. As a result of this I have no option but to stand her down.”
Rangiah has to weigh up this text message against the manager’s [Elizabeth Green] testimony that she did not give Lattouf any such direction.
Text message unlocks truth about why Lattouf was taken off air, ABC silk argues
Ian Neil SC, for the ABC, said it is important for Justice Darryl Rangiah to get to the truth of why Antoinette Lattouf was taken off air.
Key to this, Neil says, is an understanding of a Microsoft Teams meeting between ABC managers and executives, including Lattouf’s line manager at Radio Sydney, Elizabeth Green, and the chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor.
Green said in her evidence that she told the Teams meeting Lattouf had not been given a direction not to post, but Neil said it was significant that nobody else in the meeting could recall that. Neil said:
That’s a powerful consideration to weigh against Ms Green’s recollection, leading to the conclusion that it’s an unresolvable factual issue.
Rangiah should instead, Neil said, rely on a text message sent from Oliver-Taylor to ABC managing director David Anderson two minutes after the meeting finished to understand what had occurred.
This was despite, Neil said, submissions by lawyers for Lattouf that Oliver-Taylor had misled Anderson in that message. Neil said:
We do reiterate, what earthly reason would he have for lying, misrepresenting, what he had been told … two minutes before, to his superior.
So what was written in that text message? My colleague Amanda Meade has posted about that right here.
We’re back
Justice Darryl Rangiah has let everyone know he can’t sit beyond 4.15pm today but makes clear he’s not inviting the parties to take up all of that time.
The ABC expects to finish about 3.30pm. Lattouf’s defence, led by Oshie Fagir, would then have 45 minutes to reply.
We’re on a morning break
Court is expected back about 11.50am.
Amanda Meade
Doubt cast on key conversation between Lattouf and her line manager
Lattouf’s line manager at Radio Sydney, Elizabeth Green, may have been mistaken in her recollection of what she told Lattouf about her social media posting while employed by the ABC, Neil is arguing.
“So I should ignore what Ms Green says about giving her advice?” Justice Rangiah asks.
“I should ignore what Mr Oliver-Taylor says about there being a request, and instead decide that she had been told not to post anything in relation to the conflict?”
Rangiah says Green testified that she had told management before Lattouf was dismissed that she “had not given any directive to Ms Lattouf” and “that she did not consider her conversation a direction”.
Neil agrees but says his honour “should not be distracted by the characterisations that people gave as to what she was told, and look instead of what she was actually told”.
Neil said he does not want Rangiah to go as “far” as finding that Green was “wrong in the evidence she gave”, that she did not tell Lattouf not to post.
‘She did something she was not supposed to do’: ABC lawyer
Neil, for the ABC, says Lattouf was not taken off air because she expressed a political opinion but because she ignored instruction.
She was taken off air because she did something she was not supposed to do.
In the week, the week, she was at the ABC. That was the real reason.
She was told, in effect, not to post anything relating to the conflict in Israel and Gaza during the week she was with the ABC.
ABC leaders not concerned by Lattouf’s beliefs: Neil
Neil says the ABC rejects the proposition that the broadcaster’s managing director, David Anderson, and the former chair Ita Buttrose were concerned by the political opinion of Lattouf. They only cared that she expressed the opinion, Neil said.
Fagir, for Lattouf, has argued in his earlier submission that the ABC cared what Lattouf thought, and that she expressed it.
But back to Neil, he told the court that Anderson may have “misinterpreted” Lattouf’s social media presence when he described it as “full of antisemitic hatred”, but that it was a reasonably available interpretation.
He did not mind or know or care about the holding of her political opinion … what he was concerned with was, that she, in her past social media activity, had indelibly associated herself with one side.
That was his exclusive concern.
Neil went on to say that it was clear from the material before the court that Anderson had only ever been concerned with the expression of the opinions.
He said this evidence included when Anderson referred to “the Antoinette issue”, and “what her socials are full of, not what she thinks”, Neil said.
The notes of Anderson were revealing, Neil said, as “what it doesn’t say is: ‘I’m not sure we can have someone on air who thinks this’.
“He expressly doesn’t say that. No one ever says that.”
The concept that people at the ABC were concerned by Lattouf’s opinion, rather than her expression of it, was part of “the dark subterranean current that underlines the applicant’s case theory”, Neil said.
His submissions continue.
Lattouf’s case will ‘fail at a hurdle of her own construction’, ABC silk says
Ian Neil SC has started the ABC’s oral closing submissions.
He is making plain what he says the case is not about.
One thing it’s not about is the expressions of political opinion.
It’s not about discrimination.
It’s not a case about differential treatment.
It’s not a case about bespoke directions.
It’s not a case about impartiality.
It’s not an unfair dismissal case. It’s not a case about the fairness of anything that was done to the applicant, to Ms Lattouf.
Neil also said that Lattouf’s case would “fail at a hurdle of her own construction” if it was found she was dismissed because of the Human Rights Watch post, given she also argued this post was factual, and not an expression of her political opinion.
As we’ve covered earlier, Lattouf was let go after three days into a five-day fill-in stint on ABC Radio Sydney’s Mornings program when she shared the post that said Israel had used starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza.
The ABC’s submissions continue.
We’re off again in the federal court
There’s some brief comments for Lattouf before the ABC starts its closing submissions.
Amanda Meade
ABC will today conclude its $1.1m defence
After a full day of closing submissions from Antoinette Lattouf’s legal team on Thursday, today will see the ABC wrap up its defence of the unlawful termination case.
The broadcaster will defend its decision to take Lattouf off air in December 2023, a decision it has always maintained was not a termination.
“The ABC maintains that it did not terminate Ms Lattouf’s one-week contract unlawfully but we do obviously understand that this is an impost on public funds, and that is why we have tried to attempt to settle this matter,” the acting managing director, Melanie Kleyn, said this week, of the case which has cost $1.1m in external lawyers.
Yesterday, we heard Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir tell the court that Ita Buttrose’s emails “hammering” executives with complaints were influential in her sacking.
Fagir said the former chair was one of four ABC figureheads who played a pivotal role in the removal of the casual host from air and her “attitude never wavered at any point”.
Welcome
Hi, I’m Nino Bucci, and I’ll be watching day eight of the Antoinette Lattouf v ABC unlawful termination claim.
Today we expect to hear the conclusion of closing arguments.
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 9.45am and is live-streamed on the federal court’s YouTube channel.
When final submissions have concluded Justice Darryl Rangiah will retire to consider his verdict.
Article by:Source: Nino Bucci Courts and justice reporter
