Content chief who sacked Lattouf tells court about messages from Buttrose and concedes ‘there was pressure from above’
Chris Oliver-Taylor says he was put between a “rock and a hard place” when it came to Lattouf’s position as a casual presenter on ABC Radio Sydney.
In court he detailed the “pressure from above” he received from his senior colleagues, including the then chair, Ita Buttrose, over Lattouf’s appointment.
Oliver-Taylor said there was a “strong view” from colleagues about “having someone who has published strong views, either way, on air”.
“The pressure was now building, the concerns were rising,” he said of the situation on Tuesday 19 December, after Buttrose wrote to him directly about the situation and said she would be forwarding on all complaints she received about Lattouf’s presence on the broadcaster directly to him.
“We were trying to build a scaffold around Ms Lattouf, to protect her and the show … at that moment in time that was holding, but the position was becoming harder and harder, I felt,” he says.
“Why was it becoming harder and harder?” Justice Darryl Rangiah asks.
Oliver-Taylor says:
Complaints were coming into me directly from the chair’s office.
I felt there was more I wasn’t aware of, more evidence was coming in, more concerns … How long was it reasonable for the ABC to … have a presenter live on air holding views which are potentially [not] impartial? How long could we hold that position?
“What changed?” Rangiah asks.
“In my opinion, at that point, nothing had changed, apart from now the chair was directly writing to me, the chair’s office and the chair were directly forwarding me more and more and more concerns and naming me as a respondent in the claims. That raised my concern again.
I thought the issue was benign at this point, Wednesday at, say, 11.30, clearly there are more concerns coming into the chair, and the chair was to exercise her view.
Oliver-Taylor also adds he “didn’t like the chair’s comments” contained in an email about Lattouf, in which Buttrose questioned why they couldn’t pull Lattouf off-air and say she had come down with Covid or another illness, adding “we don’t owe her anything”.
Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir said Oliver-Taylor had been put in “a really unfair position … by your bosses”, to which Oliver-Taylor replies:
I don’t think that’s entirely true, sir. I think that due diligence should have been taken with regard to Ms Lattouf, and Ms Lattouf would have made an excellent presenter for the ABC in other times, but the published news meant that it was a very difficult decision that my colleagues had made. So there was pressure there, and I feel due diligence was not done as it should have been. There was pressure from above, I accept that.
Key events
The hearing has resumed
We’re back after a lunch break for the court. The cross-examination of Chris Oliver-Taylor, content chief of the ABC, is continuing.
Content chief who sacked Lattouf tells court about messages from Buttrose and concedes ‘there was pressure from above’
Chris Oliver-Taylor says he was put between a “rock and a hard place” when it came to Lattouf’s position as a casual presenter on ABC Radio Sydney.
In court he detailed the “pressure from above” he received from his senior colleagues, including the then chair, Ita Buttrose, over Lattouf’s appointment.
Oliver-Taylor said there was a “strong view” from colleagues about “having someone who has published strong views, either way, on air”.
“The pressure was now building, the concerns were rising,” he said of the situation on Tuesday 19 December, after Buttrose wrote to him directly about the situation and said she would be forwarding on all complaints she received about Lattouf’s presence on the broadcaster directly to him.
“We were trying to build a scaffold around Ms Lattouf, to protect her and the show … at that moment in time that was holding, but the position was becoming harder and harder, I felt,” he says.
“Why was it becoming harder and harder?” Justice Darryl Rangiah asks.
Oliver-Taylor says:
Complaints were coming into me directly from the chair’s office.
I felt there was more I wasn’t aware of, more evidence was coming in, more concerns … How long was it reasonable for the ABC to … have a presenter live on air holding views which are potentially [not] impartial? How long could we hold that position?
“What changed?” Rangiah asks.
“In my opinion, at that point, nothing had changed, apart from now the chair was directly writing to me, the chair’s office and the chair were directly forwarding me more and more and more concerns and naming me as a respondent in the claims. That raised my concern again.
I thought the issue was benign at this point, Wednesday at, say, 11.30, clearly there are more concerns coming into the chair, and the chair was to exercise her view.
Oliver-Taylor also adds he “didn’t like the chair’s comments” contained in an email about Lattouf, in which Buttrose questioned why they couldn’t pull Lattouf off-air and say she had come down with Covid or another illness, adding “we don’t owe her anything”.
Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir said Oliver-Taylor had been put in “a really unfair position … by your bosses”, to which Oliver-Taylor replies:
I don’t think that’s entirely true, sir. I think that due diligence should have been taken with regard to Ms Lattouf, and Ms Lattouf would have made an excellent presenter for the ABC in other times, but the published news meant that it was a very difficult decision that my colleagues had made. So there was pressure there, and I feel due diligence was not done as it should have been. There was pressure from above, I accept that.
ABC considered how Lattouf could ‘keep a low profile’ on social media
Melkman told ABC bosses that they could “ask Antoinette to keep a low profile on social media this week”, adding “you could ask her to switch her profiles to private”, after concerns were raised about her social media posts regarding the Israel-Gaza war.
Lattouf’s account is that she was not given a “direction” not to post but was advised by Elizabeth Green, ABC Radio Sydney’s content director, to “keep a low profile” and that it was suggested to her it might be better not to post on Twitter at all.
The advice was given in an email on Tuesday 19 December 2023, after Chris Oliver-Taylor said a “direction” had been given to Lattouf not to post anything about the war.
“Now at this point, to your mind, Ms Lattouf had already been given a direction not to post anything related to Israel-Gaza?” Fagir asks Oliver-Taylor.
“Right, that’s my recollection,” Oliver-Taylor agrees.
Fagir:
Did you write back to Simon [Melkman] and say, ‘Oh, no, we don’t need to do that because we’ve already given a direction about this’?
Oliver-Taylor:
I don’t believe I did.
Fagir then asks: “Did you write back to him and say, ‘we don’t need to ask anything, we’ll just give a direction, we’ll tell her what to do’?”
To which Oliver-Taylor says: “So Simon’s – Mr Melkman’s – role was to give advice.
That was his view. We’d already decided to take a slightly stronger view to try and protect Ms Lattouf and also protect the impartiality of the ABC.
ABC held fears Lattouf would ‘make it a very big and very public issue’ if they pulled her off-air
The acting editorial director, Simon Melkman, warned ABC bosses to “tread carefully” over any disciplinary action taken against Antoinette Lattouf for her social media posts on the Israel-Gaza conflict, the court has heard.
During the cross-examination of Oliver-Taylor, an email from Melkman was read aloud, which said:
I think there’s a high chance that if the ABC was to cut a presenting role short because of this post, which she presumably argues is entirely defensible and not reflective of offensive use, etc, she would make it a very big and very public issue.
I’m not suggesting our decisions as to how to manage people’s social media activity should be driven by fear of them criticising any disciplinary action we might take, but I do think it’s worth treading carefully.
The email from Melkman went on to say that “in the event you’re inclined to pursue disciplinary action and cut the contract short, which, for the reasons mentioned above, I don’t think would be warranted, it would be worth looping in P&C [People and Culture].”
Fagir then asks Oliver-Taylor: “Do you see that there’s an established process for this which involves formally investigating and giving the person procedural fairness?”
Oliver-Taylor replies: “To be honest, I’m not sure how much of the process is needed when someone’s on a short-term contract.”
Asked whether he had contacted anyone from the People and Culture team, Oliver-Taylor says the email from Melkman was written to Ahern.
“And I would expect, as per other conversations, that Mr Ahern was checking with the right people.”
Oliver-Taylor fretted over decision after Anderson flagged Lattouf’s socials as ‘full of antisemitic hatred’
Fagir has pushed Oliver-Taylor about a text exchange he had with ABC managing director, David Anderson, in which Anderson raised concerns about Lattouf’s social media content.
Anderson had written to Oliver-Taylor that Lattouf’s “socials are full of antisemitic hatred” and shared screenshots of Lattouf’s Instagram posts and asked him what he would do if these had been shared by a staff member, to which Oliver-Taylor replied, “I think this is hugely problematic”.
“What was hugely problematic about what you could see up to the point where you expressed that view?” Fagir asks.
[I] received an email from the managing director … that is hugely problematic when he uses words like ‘full of antisemitic hatred’. And I had the decision to make around, do I put someone with those views, arguably unchecked, on air within 10 hours.
Oliver-Taylor refused to confirm whether he agreed with Anderson that Lattouf’s social media accounts were “full of antisemitic hatred”, saying he didn’t understand the conflict well enough to comment.
What I was concerned about was that these were live. I think they’re tweets or Instagram posts, these were live. And that we now had someone live on air, about to go on air within 12 hours or so the next morning, what do we now do? That was my concern.
“But what exactly was the concern?” Fagir asks.
Oliver-Taylor:
The concern that we now had someone posting something potentially that put the ABC in an impartial [sic] position.
Fagir:
You had no idea what she was posting.
Oliver-Taylor:
I was reading this, sir. I could read this has been sent from the managing director of the ABC.
Fagir then responds: “You see on the next page, you respond ‘Copy, we’ll check socials now. And agree’. You’re agreeing with what Mr Anderson had said in his text message?”
To which Oliver says: “I agree that this is all correct and this is happening live, that we have a problem”.
Who gave Lattouf the ‘direction’?
An interesting point has come up in the cross-examination of Oliver-Taylor.
The ABC’s outgoing content chief has given evidence that Lattouf was removed from air because she breached a direction given to her “and for other reasons”.
Oliver-Taylor says the direction was not to post “anything about the war”.
“Who gave Ms Lattouf the direction to your understanding?” Fagir asks.
“I believe it was Ahern,” says Oliver-Taylor. Steve Ahern is a former manger of ABC Radio Sydney.
Fagir’s interest is clearly piqued by that answer.
“You understood Mr Ahern to have given her such an instruction?” he asks.
“I believe so,” says Oliver-Taylor, who has seemed very nervous throughout the cross-examination.
“You’re unsure?” asks Fagir.
“I am a little unsure.”
Until this point, the evidence we’ve heard from the ABC was that the “direction” given to Lattouf not to post came from Elizabeth Green.
Lattouf contests that it was a “direction” not to post, instead saying Green had advised her it would be better if she “kept a low profile” on social media and suggested it might be better if she didn’t post on Twitter during her time on air.
‘Those are your lawyer’s words, not your words, correct?’
Fagir has repeatedly taken Oliver-Taylor to task for what he says are instances of the ABC executive using words that are rehearsed or not his own.
At one point, when Fagir asks him whether his evidence was that Lattouf was removed for “breaching a direction” from ABC bosses, Oliver-Taylor replies: “breaching a direction, as well as after publishing a number of tweets, articles, posts, the continued view was that Ms Lattouf was not impartial whilst hosting a live radio show.”
Fagir asks, scathingly:
Have you been practising those words that you just said?
Affronted, Oliver-Taylor replies: “Sir!”
Earlier, Fagir had quizzed Oliver-Taylor about the language in his affidavit.
“I’ll just read this out,” Fagir said. “In your affidavit, you say you understand impartiality to be the ‘absence of conduct that could reasonably be perceived to unduly favour or support one perspective of a controversial issue over another’.
Fagir went on to say:
Now, you don’t express yourself in that way at all, do you, normally? Those are your lawyer’s words, not your words, correct?”
Oliver-Taylor said: “They’re in an affidavit, you’ll be more familiar than I am about how they’re supposed to be written.”
“Well, they’re supposed to be the witness’s evidence,” Fagir said.
Strong exchanges over Lattouf’s views on Israel-Gaza
Oliver-Taylor is being strongly questioned about his understanding of Lattouf’s political views before she was removed from her presenting gig on ABC Radio Sydney.
In his affidavit, a section of which has been read aloud in court, Oliver-Taylor says he “had no actual knowledge of the fact or content of any political opinions that Ms Lattouf held”.
“Can I suggest to you that contrary what appears to be the proposition of 17A [of your affidavit], you had a great deal of knowledge of the fact and content of Ms Lattouf’s opinion during the week beginning 18 December 2023 and more knowledge as the week continued,” says Oshie Fagir, Lattouf’s barrister.
He continues:
Certainly at the time that you removed Ms Lattouf, you understood very well her position on the Gaza-Israel war.
Oliver-Taylor says he “understood that there were published comments” by Lattouf that could affect her position on live radio, but says he didn’t believe he knew what her position was on the war in Gaza at the time of her employment at the ABC.
I can’t recall what I knew at that exact time. Clearly in the 12 or 14 months that have passed I understand her position. What I was being told was that there was posting and other things going on during that time. I don’t want to sit here and say I knew her exact position. I could guess her position, but I cannot remember at this point in time whether I knew her position.
Lattouf’s Lebanese background comes up again
Oliver-Taylor is under fierce questioning about an apparent inconsistency in his evidence. He is asked about his understanding of Lattouf’s race or national background.
“I didn’t know her race or national extraction,” Oliver-Taylor says.
He is then directed to an email he forwarded on to the managing director, David Anderson, on 18 December 2023, after complaints about her first came in to the ABC, which gives background on Lattouf.
“You see the heading section of ‘Antoinette Lattouf’?” Fagir asks.
“You see the fourth dot point there?… ‘Her background is Lebanese Christian. She grew up in western Sydney, the child of Lebanese immigrants’?”
Oliver-Taylor says that this information about Lattouf came from an email he received from former ABC Radio Sydney manager Steve Ahern.
“It was a complete copy and paste from Steve Ahern,” says Oliver-Taylor, adding he had only “skim read” the material, so he “didn’t necessarily know [Lattouf’s background] in a meaningful way”.
“Is your evidence that you did not know, as at the afternoon of Monday 18 December, that Ms Lattouf’s background was Lebanese Christian?” asks an incredulous Fagir.
“I will say that I did know, based on this,” says Oliver-Taylor. “I did not recall that.”
“Of course, of course you knew, Mr Oliver-Taylor,” Fagir says.
This question of Lattouf’s racial background and ABC management’s understanding of it is emerging a key part of Lattouf’s team’s argument.
Fagir said in his opening statement on Monday that the broadcaster rejected Lattouf’s claim of racial discrimination, because she has not proven being Lebanese, Middle Eastern or Arab is a race.
However, the ABC’s lead barrister, Ian Neil SC, said in court on Wednesday that “the ABC does not deny the existence of any race” and the onus was on Lattouf to provide evidence in relation to any race claim she may make.
Lattouf at federal court for day five of unlawful termination hearing
Oliver-Taylor grilled over ABC policy on employee social media activity
Oliver-Taylor, the outgoing content chief for the ABC, is being asked about his understanding of various policies and procedures.
“Do you have an understanding of the relevance and scope of ABC policies?” Oshie Fagir, barrister for Lattouf, asks.
“I believe I have some degree of knowledge, yes … I can’t quote them verbatim to you, sir,” Oliver-Taylor replies.
Fagir:
I’m not asking you to quote them verbatim. I’m asking you whether you have an understanding of their relevance and scope.
Oliver-Taylor:
I have an understanding of their scope.
Fagir pushes Oliver-Taylor as to whether personal social media activity by ABC employees is classified as ABC content, and whether or not it is subject to the editorial policies.
Oliver-Taylor concedes it is not.
Fagir directs Oliver-Taylor to look at the ABC’s personal use of social media guidelines.
You see the words: ‘This means that if a complaint is received about content on a worker’s personal account, it will not be investigated as an editorial complaint or assessed against the editorial policies’.
Do you see that you agree with that, or do you have some different view as to how a complaint about content on a worker’s personal account is handled at the ABC?”
Oliver-Taylor replies: “As written, I can’t disagree with that.”
Fagir:
Well, setting aside what’s written, was it your understanding, as of December 2023, that if a complaint received about content on a worker’s personal account, it would not be investigated as an editorial complaint or assessed against the editorial policies?
“I referred that to Mr Melkman for his consideration,” replies Oliver-Taylor. “I was not sure.”
How Chris Oliver-Taylor’s role was downgraded by new ABC chair
In January, our media correspondent Amanda Meade broke this story about Chris Oliver-Taylor leaving the ABC after his role was substantially downgraded by Kim Williams.
Oliver-Taylor confirmed his departure at the end of January, saying the demotion and the “redefined creative vision” of the board had driven his decision to resign.
His tenure was marred by the fallout from his decision to sack the casual Sydney radio presenter Antoinette Lattouf.
Fagir inquires about change to Oliver-Taylor’s oath
An unusual question to kick off the cross-examination of Oliver-Taylor, as Oshie Fagir, the barrister representing Lattouf, asks him why he swore a religious oath today at the federal court, but affirmed his oath – an affirmation with no reference to God – when giving evidence to the Fair Work Commission last year.
Oliver-Taylor says he is a Catholic and at the time of the Fair Work Commission, “I think I misunderstood what I was swearing”.
Key points from Thursday
Most of Thursday was taken up with the cross-examination of David Anderson, the ABC’s managing director, who was quizzed about his knowledge of Lattouf’s employment at the ABC in December 2023.
Lattouf had a five-day contract as a fill-in host on ABC Radio Sydney’s Mornings program in December 2023. She was taken off air after three days after she posted on social media about the Israel-Gaza war.
Anderson told the court on Thursday he believed Lattouf should never have been appointed as a casual radio host because of her “partisan view on Israel-Gaza”.
In Anderson’s affidavit, published by the court on Thursday, he said local radio management, specifically Steve Ahern, who we expect to give evidence today, “made a negligent error of judgement by employing Ms Lattouf without assessing her prior media and social media activity”.
However, Anderson also conceded the process of removing Lattouf from the ABC was “completely abnormal from start to finish”, saying she had not been given the chance to respond to allegations against her.
Anderson was also quizzed about text messages he sent to the ABC’s chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, alleging Lattouf’s “socials are full of antisemitic hatred.”
Pressed in court about which posts contained “antisemitic hatred”, Anderson said: “I have a recollection of her … challenging the existence of Israel, which I do believe to be antisemitic.”
He added he couldn’t recall specifics of the messages, or if the posts had come from Lattouf, other people posting replies to her, or her replies to them, “but that, to me, added up to antisemitism that was sitting on her social feeds”, he said.
Anderson was also asked whether he had any doubts that “there exists a Lebanese race”.
“If somebody tells me they’re Lebanese, I don’t question whether they mean it’s race or national identity,” he said. “I haven’t formed a view as to whether there is or there isn’t [a Lebanese race].”
Oshie Fagir said in his opening statement on Monday that the broadcaster rejected Lattouf’s claim of racial discrimination, because she has not proven being Lebanese, Middle Eastern or Arab is a race.
However, the ABC’s lead barrister, Ian Neil SC, said in court on Wednesday that “the ABC does not deny the existence of any race” and the onus was on Lattouf to provide evidence in relation to any race claim she may make.
Here’s our full report from yesterday’s proceedings.
Chris Oliver-Taylor begins giving evidence
We’re back.
First up, we’ll be hearing from Chris Oliver-Taylor, the outgoing ABC content chief who sacked Lattouf.
Hearing blows out beyond initial expectation
Today – day five in this case – was supposed to be the final day for evidence to be heard, with the court resuming at the end of February for closing arguments.
However, the case has blown out and it is clear that the evidence will not be finished today, as an exasperated Justice Darryl Rangiah pointed out yesterday.
For that reason, court will start at 9.30am today, instead of the usual 10.15am. But Rangiah made it clear that more sitting days would be needed and he would be making inquiries of the parties as to whether time could be found next week for the evidence to be concluded.
It was clear from the very first witness – the journalist Antoinette Lattouf, who is at the heart of this case – that things were not going to run to schedule, when her cross-examination, which was allotted two hours allotted on Monday afternoon, went to five hours and only wrapped up after lunch on Tuesday.
We’re still expecting to hear evidence from three ABC managers, including the former chair Ita Buttrose, but how many the court will get through today, and whether they’ll follow the scheduled order of appearance, is not yet clear.
Welcome
Hi, I’m Kate Lyons, and I’ll be watching day five of the Antoinette Lattouf v ABC unlawful termination claim.
We will bring you all the evidence as it unfolds from 9.30am.
Chris Oliver-Taylor, the outgoing ABC content chief who sacked Lattouf, is expected to give evidence today.
Remaining witnesses include the former ABC Radio Sydney manager Steve Ahern, the ABC Radio Sydney’s content director, Elizabeth Green, and former chair Ita Buttrose.
