Journalist Antoinette Lattouf has won her unlawful dismissal case against the ABC, after she was taken off the air on day three of a five-day contract filling in as an ABC radio presenter in 2023.
In a judgement handed down on Wednesday, Federal Court Justice Darryl Rangiah determined the ABC had contravened the law by terminating her employment for “reasons including that she held a political opinion opposing the Israeli military campaign in Gaza”. However, he rejected Lattouf’s allegations that the reasons for her termination included “her race or national extraction”.
Justice Rangiah further found Lattouf was “merely provided with advice that it would be best not to post anything controversial about the war” while the ABC had argued Lattouf was given a “direction” not to do so. The court ruled against the broadcaster on this point.
He also found she was “not given any opportunity to defend herself against the allegations” before she was sacked.
The ABC has been ordered to pay “the appropriate award of compensation” of $70,000, with another hearing at a later date to determine if it should be ordered to pay any pecuniary penalty.
In a statement, ABC managing director Hugh Marks said it was clear that the matter “was not handled in line with our values and expectations” and that the ABC also “let down our staff and audiences”.
He noted the judge found the correct processes weren’t followed, with errors consequently made.
“We regret how the decision to remove Ms Lattouf from air was handled and the distress occasioned her. We extend our sincere apologies to Ms Lattouf and wish her well in her future endeavours,” he said.
Marks acknowledged concerns about the broadcaster’s handling of race and political views, emphasising the ABC’s “absolute commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion at all levels of the organisation, to addressing racism and discrimination of all kinds, and to accurate and impartial journalism”.
Given “confusion” around the personal use of social media guidelines, the ABC will be replacing this with new public comment guidelines, he confirmed.
“There’s much to consider in the decision and we’ll now carefully review it,” Marks said.
Addressing the media after the verdict, Lattouf noted the court found that “punishing someone for sharing facts about these war crimes is also illegal”.
“I was punished for my political opinion,” she said.
Lattouf was dismissed by the ABC in December 2023 — just three days into a five-day contract to host Sydney’s Mornings radio show — after sharing a post on Instagram by Human Rights Watch (HRW), with the caption “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war”.
“It is now June 2025 and Palestinian children are still being starved,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
“We see their images every day, emaciated, skeletal, scavenging through the rubble for scraps. This unspeakable suffering is not accidental. Deliberately starving and killing children is a war crime.”
Soon after Lattouf presented her first program in 2023, the broadcaster had begun to receive complaints from the public, which asserted she had “expressed anti-Semitic views, lacked impartiality and was unsuitable to present any program for the ABC”, Rangiah noted in his judgement.
“It became clear that the complaints were an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air,” Rangiah said.
Lattouf claimed she was sacked for expressing political opinion, and that the ABC allegedly told her she breached its social media policy by posting content about the war in Gaza on her personal Instagram account.
She also claimed her racial background as a woman of Lebanese and Arab and Middle Eastern descent was a factor.
Rangiah noted the ABC had not only taken her off the air for the following two days of the contract, but she was also “required to cease work immediately and leave the workplace without completing her shift”.
The Fair Work Commission previously ruled that she was dismissed, despite the ABC’s claims that her employment was not actually terminated as she was paid for the full five days.
Lattouf sued the national broadcaster in the Federal Court earlier this year, with the two-week trial taking place in February.
PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to the ABC for comment.
Lead image: Antoinette Lattouf / Getty
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