Lattouf barrister points finger at Ita Buttrose in unlawful termination feud

Buttrose brought “pressure” to bear on Anderson and Oliver-Taylor, Fagir said, including by emailing both of them, and “her conduct had a material effect on the ultimate outcome”.

“Ms Buttrose’s attitude never wavered at any point,” he said.

Fagir said the “group of campaigners” was also “materially influential”.

During a defiant stint in the witness box this month, Buttrose told the court that she did not want Lattouf taken off-air and “didn’t put pressure on anybody”.

She said an email in which she asked Anderson if Lattouf had been replaced and said she was “over getting emails about her” was a request for an update.

Fagir said Lattouf was sacked about 48 hours after the complaints against Lattouf started rolling in.

“It’s said she’s sacked because it was thought she’d breached a direction [not to post about the Israel-Gaza war on social media], and she may have breached a policy,” Fagir said.

“It is pellucidly clear, in my respectful submission, that no direction was given.”

The ABC maintains that Lattouf was not sacked. The broadcaster says her contract ended as planned after five days on December 22, 2023, but that she was not required to present the final two shows.

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She was paid in January 2024 for all five shifts.

On December 19, 2023, a day before her removal, Lattouf had shared a post critical of Israel from non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch on Instagram. She added the caption: “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.”

Oliver-Taylor texted Anderson on December 20 that Lattouf “failed to follow a direction from her producer not to post anything whilst working with the ABC”. He told Anderson he had “no option but to stand her down”.

‘Game over for the ABC’

But Fagir submitted that, if the evidence of Lattouf’s line manager, Elizabeth Green, was accepted, it was “game over for the ABC” because Green told the court she had said in a call with colleagues that she had “not given any ‘directive’ to Ms Lattouf” about posting on social media.

At the time of Lattouf’s removal from the airwaves, Green was ABC Radio Sydney’s content director. She is now executive producer of its Drive program.

“I explained that I had had ‘spoken with’ or ‘had a word with’ Ms Lattouf and advised her against posting on social media while she was presenting Mornings, but that I did not consider my conversation with Ms Lattouf about posting on social media to have been a ‘direction’,” Green said in an affidavit.

Green gave evidence that she had told Lattouf it was “best not to post anything that would be considered controversial while you’re with us”, but if “something is fact based and from a verified source, I am sure it would be fine”.

Fagir submitted that the court could be “comfortably satisfied” that Oliver-Taylor and Latimer knew that no explicit direction had been given.

But Justice Darryl Rangiah noted there was “no direct evidence that Ms Green’s statement that she had not given a direction was communicated to Mr Oliver-Taylor”.

The ABC will deliver its closing submissions on Friday.

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