The ABC has been ordered by the federal court to pay Antoinette Lattouf $150,000 in pecuniary penalties for terminating her employment.
In a strongly worded judgment the court found the broadcaster had “abjectly surrendered” to pro-Israel lobbyists and “let down the Australian public badly”.
The penalty is for breaching the Fair Work Act and the ABC’s enterprise agreement when it unlawfully terminated the casual presenter for holding a political opinion opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
The pecuniary penalty is on top of a previous order to pay Lattouf compensation of $70,000.
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The court found the ABC’s conduct was a particularly serious breach of employment law because the ABC’s senior managers knew there was an “organised political campaign” by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Lattouf removed from air.
“The ABC’s position became more difficult, caught between the campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists, its statutory obligation of impartiality, including the appearance of impartiality, and Ms Lattouf pouring fuel on the fire by making a social media post that was obviously going to be controversial,” Justice Darryl Rangiah said in his published judgment.
“The ABC’s response was to surrender to the lobbyists’ political campaign by sacrificing Ms Lattouf. It did so for spurious reasons and without giving Ms Lattouf the opportunity to defend herself.”
The decision on penalties brings to an end a highly charged dispute which began in December 2023 when the journalist’s on-air shifts were cut short three days into a five-day stint hosting ABC Radio’s Sydney Mornings.
In June Rangiah found the ABC contravened section 772 of the Fair Work Act and breached five clauses of the ABC’s enterprise agreement.
The amount is three times as much as the ABC submitted it should pay, but far short of the $350,000 Lattouf wanted.
The ABC had admitted it acted unlawfully and said the total penalty imposed should be between $37,560 and $56,340.
Rangiah found the main decision-maker, former chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor, “blithely ignored the risk that the ABC would be in contravention of the enterprise agreement and forged ahead with his decision to terminate”.
“He did not bother to consult the human relations and legal experts within the ABC,” Rangiah wrote. “That was, I infer, because he was keen to “beat the story” that The Australian intended to publish. I accept Ms Lattouf’s submission that the ABC acted with disdain for her legal rights under the enterprise agreement.”
Rangiah rejected Lattouf’s submission that the ABC lacked contrition because it had not terminated the employment of the director of audio, Ben Latimer, for his role.
While Oliver-Taylor has left the ABC, Latimer was promoted to the executive after the events of 2023. “Although I did not accept significant aspects of Mr Latimer’s evidence, it was not his decision to remove Ms Lattouf from her employment,” Rangiah said.
“There is no obvious basis for the termination of Mr Latimer’s employment. I do not consider that Mr Latimer remaining employed by the ABC demonstrates a lack of contrition.”
The ABC’s failure to investigate who leaked news of her termination to The Australian demonstrated its apology to Lattouf for distress caused “has its limits” and the broadcaster has “limited contrition for the broader effects of its unlawful actions” on the journalist, the judgment found.
Rangiah said the “human consequences of the unlawful termination of employment ought not be underestimated” and could be “devastating”.
The court found a statement by ABC managing director Hugh Marks demonstrated he was “acutely aware of the reputational damage that has been caused to the ABC” by the Lattouf affair. However, substantial penalties were necessary to ensure it never happened again.
At a hearing earlier this month, Lattouf’s lawyers argued for the maximum penalty because of “significant pressure” put on senior management by Ita Buttrose, the broadcaster’s former chair, to sack Lattouf.
The trigger for Lattouf’s sudden removal on the Wednesday after her shift was an Instagram post she shared from Human Rights Watch that said Israel had used starvation as a “weapon of war” in Gaza.
The broadcaster asked the court to take into consideration the finding by Rangiah that Lattouf’s conduct in making the Human Rights Watch post was “ill-advised and inconsiderate of her employer”.
The ABC has been ordered to pay the penalty to Lattouf within 28 days.
