Former ABC radio presenter Antoinette Lattouf has failed in her bid to have the public broadcaster hand over a tranche of emails relating to her dismissal.
Ms Lattouf was sacked from her informal presenting position at the station last year and took the ABC to the Fair Work Commission in December claiming the decision was political over her stance on Palestine and her Lebanese heritage.
On Friday, the commission rejected Ms Lattouf’s request that ABC be ordered to hand over emails sent to chairwoman Ita Buttrose and CEO David Anderson calling for her dismissal from the station, the report reports. ABC.
It was previously revealed that a coordinated campaign by Jewish lawyers had attempted to have Ms Lattouf fired.
Secret WhatsApp messages from a 156-member Australian group called Lawyers for Israel revealed how they bombarded ABC chair Ita Buttrose with emails threatening legal action unless the presenter was fired.
Antoinette Lattouf is seen leaving a Fair Work Commission hearing in Sydney in January.
But the ABC said its claim was “unfounded” in legal papers lodged by the broadcaster with the Fair Work Commission.
The broadcaster claimed that “any ‘political opinions’ held by (Ms Lattouf) were totally irrelevant to (and played no role in) the ABC’s decision.”
The ABC claims Lattouf violated the broadcaster’s policies for bias when he shared a link to a Human Rights Watch report on the war in Gaza.
‘The ABC decided not to require (Ms Lattouf) to perform the last two of her five shifts as an occasional presenter because (she) had failed or refused to comply with instructions not to post on social media about matters controversial during the short. During that period she was presenting a radio show on the ‘ABC Sydney’ radio station,’ the legal defense filed stated.
In January, around 80 ABC employees at the organization’s Ultimo headquarters in Sydney threatened to go on strike over fears of “external interference” and how it handled complaints against staff.
Antoinette Lattouf previously thanked the “millions” of Australians who supported her in her unlawful dismissal case against the ABC after she was fired three days into her job.
“MEAA media members at ABC today called on CEO David Anderson to urgently meet with staff and address growing concerns about outside interference, culturally unsafe management practices and to champion journalism without fear or favoritism,” the union published in X.
That same day, Lattouf shared, and then deleted, a post on his Instagram account by comedian Dan Ilic who wrote: “This saga will end with Ita (Buttrose) and David Anderson quitting because they forgot what their job was.”
Ms Lattouf, who is described in her Fair Work claim as a “multi-award winning journalist, with many years of experience in news and current affairs on television, radio and podcasts”, has so far raised almost $54,000 for his legal fight.
The case will be heard by Gerard Boyce, deputy chairman of the Fair Work Commission.