Journalist Antoinette Lattouf says she is yet to receive a personal apology from the ABC after a judge found she was unlawfully sacked for reasons including her political opinions.<\/p>\n
Her lawyers returned to the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday to push for a financial penalty of $300,000-$350,000 to be imposed for contraventions of the Fair Work Act.<\/p>\n
The ABC’s lawyers have argued that the penalty should be between $37,500 and $56,000.<\/p>\n
Speaking outside of court ahead of the hearing, Ms Lattouf said she had never received a personal public apology from the public broadcaster.<\/p>\n
“Well, the ABC are meant to be the good guys in the media, and I am a big believer and a big supporter of a fair and robust ABC,” she told reporters.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t had a personal apology, a personal public apology, and all I want is for an ABC that is fair and that acts with integrity.”<\/p>\n
The court previously found Ms Lattouf’s employment was unlawfully terminated for reasons that included her political opinion opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n
In late June, Justice Daryl Rangiah ordered Ms Lattouf be awarded at least $70,000 in compensation for non-economic loss.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In his Federal Court judgment, Justice Darryl Rangiah foreshadowed possible further penalties against the national broadcaster. (ABC News: Abubakr Sajid)<\/p>\n
Her five-day presenting contract at ABC Radio Sydney was cut short when she was taken off air after three days in December 2023.<\/p>\n
The court previously heard that decision came after she shared a post on Human Rights Watch to her personal Instagram that reported starvation was being used as a tool of war in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Justice Darryl Rangiah found the journalist had been provided with “advice” that it would be best not to post anything controversial about Gaza, as opposed to a direction not to do so.<\/p>\n
The advice was also qualified by an indication that posting fact-based material from a verified source would be fine, the judge said.<\/p>\n
Ms Lattouf’s presence on air had been the subject of a co-ordinated campaign of complaints to the ABC from pro-Israel lobbyists and the judge found the decision was made to “appease” those lobbyists.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Antoinette Lattouf outside court following the Federal Court verdict that ruled she had been unlawfully terminated by the ABC. (ABC News: Abubakr Sajid)<\/p>\n
ABC regrets handling of Lattouf’s removal from air<\/p>\n
The ABC’s Chief People Officer, Deena Amorelli, was on Wednesday cross-examined about the broadcaster’s response following Justice Rangiah’s judgement.<\/p>\n
Managing Director Hugh Marks has previously said in a statement that the ABC regrets “how the decision to remove Ms Lattouf from air was handled and the distress occasioned to her”.<\/p>\n
Ms Amorelli answered “not to my knowledge” when asked whether the managing director had made “any attempt” to contact Ms Lattouf directly.<\/p>\n
“Nor has anyone else from the ABC?” Ms Lattouf’s counsel, Oshie Fagir, asked.<\/p>\n
“Not to my knowledge,” Ms Amorelli replied.<\/p>\n
“The ABC simply decided whatever expression of regret it wished to make should be done in the form of this statement, as opposed to any direct communication to Ms Lattouf?” Mr Fagir asked.<\/p>\n
Ms Amorelli replied: “The apology in this statement is to Ms Lattouf, and it is in this public statement, yes.”<\/p>\n
The court heard the ABC still does not know who leaked the story of Ms Lattouf’s removal from air to The Australian newspaper.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ABC counsel Ian Neil SC at court on Wednesday morning. (ABC News: Jamie McKinnell)<\/p>\n
During his cross-examination, Mr Fagir put to the witness that the ABC was proposing a penalty which represented about 0.00375 per cent of its annual budget of about $1 billion.<\/p>\n
Mr Fagir later described that as “an infinitesimally small amount of money in the context of the ABC’s financial and budgetary position”.<\/p>\n
Ms Amorelli said following the judgement, she had delivered a one-hour training session, offered multiple times, to the senior leadership team and board.<\/p>\n
The ABC had also received independent legal advice about the judgement, she told the court.<\/p>\n
“The ABC is satisfied the response to date has been a sufficient response to the court’s findings?” Mr Fagir asked.<\/p>\n
“Yes,” Ms Amorelli replied.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ABC’s Chief People Officer Deena Amorelli was cross-examined on Wednesday.\u00a0 (ABC News: Ruby Ritchie)<\/p>\n
She said the ABC looked at the court’s judgement \u2014 which she said had “reverberated throughout the organisation” \u2014 and the “lessons learned”, but had not conducted independent investigations into what Mr Fagir described as “the underlying reasons” behind the breach.<\/p>\n
“Let me put the point to you directly, Ms Amorelli,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Does the ABC know why this particular email campaign precipitated a chain of events which led to the ABC breaking the law?”<\/p>\n
“No,” Ms Amorelli replied.<\/p>\n
She rejected suggestions that the expressions of regret in her affidavit were “performative”.<\/p>\n
Contraventions a ‘one off’, lawyers argue<\/p>\n
In written submissions, the ABC’s legal team described the context in which the contraventions took place as “extraordinary and unique”.<\/p>\n
“The contravening conduct that resulted was a true ‘one off’,” they said.<\/p>\n
Former ABC chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor, who was found to have been the decision maker, had to deal with circumstances which caused him to act without careful consideration, the submissions highlighted.<\/p>\n
“There is no sensible possibility that the ABC or any other employer will ever again be presented with the perfect storm that confronted Mr Oliver-Taylor.”<\/p>\n
That reduced the need for the financial penalty to act as deterrence for other employers, the ABC argued.<\/p>\n
The submissions described steps taken to ensure the same mistake is not made again as “extensive” \u2014 including the training Ms Amorelli was quizzed about, which was included in material handed up to the judge on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“The court can comfortably be satisfied that the senior leaders of the ABC are now, or soon will be, fully appraised of both their individual and the ABC’s obligations, as they relate to the contraventions as found by the court.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Journalist Antoinette Lattouf says she is yet to receive a personal apology from the ABC after a judge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[82282,2655,82290,82277,82285,82273,1783,82283,82278,82286,58725,70,82279,43,82280,10850,82284,82281,82287,82288,44,82289,82276,41,39,42,40,82274,82275],"class_list":["post-116180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-82282","tag-abc","tag-abc-counsel-ian-neil-sc","tag-abc-radio-sydney","tag-abcs-chief-people-officer","tag-antoinette-lattouf","tag-compensation","tag-contravening","tag-costs-hearing","tag-deena-amorelli","tag-fair-work-act","tag-federal-court","tag-financial-penalty-hearing","tag-headlines","tag-human-rights-watch-social-media-post","tag-journalist","tag-justice-daryl-rangiah","tag-legal-fees","tag-managing-director-hugh-marks","tag-ms-lattoufs-counsel","tag-news","tag-oshie-fagir","tag-political-opinions-gaza","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-unlawful-termination-case","tag-unlawfully-terminated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}