The ABC has denied it fired Antoinette Lattouf for race-based reasons, and instead claimed it fired her for violating its strict social media policy.
Late last year, Lattouf accused the ABC of unlawfully terminating her after she was fired three days into a five-day ABC Sydney radio gig.
Lattouf had shared a video from the Human Rights Watch to her Instagram story, which included a report that Israel was using starvation as a weapon against Gaza. (Interestingly, the ABC also reported on this story.)
Lattouf updated her wrongful termination lawsuit with Fair Work in January to include racial discrimination, with her lawyer Josh Bornstein claiming that other white journalists at the ABC had not been fired for sharing their personal opinions.
The ABC has now slammed Lattouf’s discrimination allegations as “fundamentally and entirely misconceived”, per The Sydney Morning Herald.
Instead, the public broadcaster argued in its legal defence that Lattouf was fired after she was ordered not to post about “matters of controversy” during her contract, which it alleges she failed to comply with.
The ABC said Lattouf’s political opinions about Israel and her race were “entirely irrelevant” to its decision, and said the “suggestion that the ABC took action against the applicant on the basis of her race, national extraction or social origin is abhorrent.”
It comes shortly after the SMH revealed that a group of pro-Israel lawyers had relentlessly pressued and lobbied the ABC to fire Lattouf, and had received letters from ABC chair Ita Buttrose confirming their complaints the day before her dismissal.
Lattouf, for her part, is seeking a “detailed, public apology” and “compensation for harm to reputation and for distress and humiliation” from the ABC, as well as for the ABC to offer her a role back on air.
The ABC, however, has claimed Lattouf was paid for all five of her shifts, and therefore she has suffered no financial loss.
The case will be heard by Fair work on January 18.
Image: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images
