The ABC received complaints about Antoinette Lattouf just 90 minutes following her first shift during a fill-in stint on Sydney radio, a court has been told.
Ms Lattouf’s high-profile trial returned to the Federal Court for a third day on Wednesday, with the ABC opening its case after she sued the national broadcaster claiming unfair dismissal.
Ms Lattouf sued after she was sent home for the final two days of a five-day fill-in stint on ABC Radio’s Sydney Mornings program in December 2023.
She is suing under the Fair Work Act and has claimed her sacking was motivated by complaints made during a campaign by the “pro-Israel lobby” because of her political beliefs and social media posts on the Gaza war.
She claimed she was unlawfully sacked after sharing a post on Instagram by Human Rights Watch reading “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war”.
“The Israeli government is using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war in Gaza,” the post also read.
‘IMPARTIALITY’
Delivering his opening address on Wednesday morning, ABC barrister Ian Neil SC told Justice Darryl Rangiah that the complaints made to the ABC had nothing to do with Ms Lattouf being taken off air.
The court was told the ABC began receiving complaints via email at 12.35pm on Monday, December 18 – just more than 90 minutes after Ms Lattouf completed her first shift.
The court was told that ABC managing director David Anderson asked management to “look into the matter”.
Ms Lattouf claims the decision to sack her was made by Mr Anderson, then ABC chair Ita Buttrose and ABC chief content officer Christopher Oliver-Taylor, her barrister Oshie Fagir has previously told the court.
Mr Neil told the court on Wednesday that Mr Oliver-Taylor decided exclusively to take Ms Lattouf off air.
And, Mr Neil said, after reviewing the complaints on Monday, the ABC decided that Ms Lattouf would stay on air.
“That was the end of the influence of those complaints,” Mr Neil said.
However, he said, ABC management began to look at Ms Lattouf again on Monday evening when Mr Anderson discovered her social media accounts.
The court was told that Mr Anderson then wrote to Mr Oliver-Taylor saying: “I think we have an Antoinette issue.”
Mr Neil told the court that Mr Anderson was concerned about “impartiality and perceptions of impartiality”.
“That was the focus of the thinking on the part of Mr Anderson,” Mr Neil said.
The court was told that Ms Lattouf was hired under the ABC’s “diversity policy” given she was a Lebanese-Christian from western Sydney.
The court was told that in an email, ABC head of capital city networks Steve Ahern said that several years earlier Ms Lattouf was identified among “potential future presenters for ABC Radio” under its diversity policy.
On Tuesday, Ms Lattouf detailed in court the toll her sacking had wrought on her mental health and how she was trolled and abused online.
She said the ABC alleged she had breached its editorial and social media policy in a meeting on December 20.
Ms Lattouf on Tuesday afternoon became tearful as she explained the psychological effects of the saga, saying it had caused her to drink more and rely on sleeping pills.
She said she told her psychiatrist that she was a “social drinker” but had become a “heavier drinker” and sometimes drank until she passed out.
She also said she experienced “paranoia” of being followed, including one occasion when she went into a cafe because she feared she was being tailed.
Her psychiatrist Nigel Strauss told the court that Ms Lattouf had been diagnosed with a depressive disorder with high levels of anxiety.
In a video she posted to social media, and which was played to the court on Tuesday, Ms Lattouf said that every time she was put up as the “poster girl” for “justice” and a “free and fair press” she was struck by a “suffocating” heaviness and sadness.
She told the court that she contacted police in October last year after receiving an abusive email on her private account and had been told in January that police had identified the person responsible.
“I don’t know why I reported this one and not some of the others,” Ms Lattouf told the court.
“On that particular day I was like ‘I shouldn’t have to put up with this’.
“I don’t know how they got my private email. I made a statement to police and they’ve identified the man.”
In a statement to NewsWire, NSW Police said it was investigating a complaint made by Ms Lattouf about an alleged online threat.
She told the court she had been “rendered unemployable” as a result of the national broadcaster accusing her of being “insubordinate” and “breaching editorial and social media policy”.
The court was told that at the December 20 meeting, Mr Ahern told Ms Lattouf that she was being taken off air and wouldn’t complete her final two shifts.
She said she was told: “You were told not to post on your social media.”
The court was told that Ms Lattouf had a phone conversation with ABC content director Elizabeth Green on Monday, December 18 – the first day of her five-day stint.
She said she was given a “heads up” that the “the ABC had been flooded with complaints from pro-Israel lobbyists because we have put you on air” and asked to keep a “low profile”.
But she told the court that she came to an agreement with Ms Green to only post from “reputable” sources.
The hearing continues.
https://thewest.com.au/news/complaints-didnt-fuel-antoinette-lattouf-sacking-abc-c-17619121
