Federal Court closing submissions begin in unlawful termination case

There has been no shortage of drama during the trial to date, and tensions have spilled over between some high-profile witnesses outside the confines of the courtroom.

Former ABC chair, Ita Buttrose, and the public broadcaster’s managing director, David Anderson, both gave evidence during the trial.

Their recollections of events before Lattouf was taken off-air on ABC Radio Sydney on Wednesday, December 20, 2023, differ in some respects, including as to whether Buttrose and Anderson had a conversation about Lattouf in the ACB’s Ultimo headquarters earlier that day.

The differences in their evidence prompted Buttrose to send a legal letter to the ABC’s lawyers.

It is not yet clear whether that letter will come up during today’s hearing.

Buttrose says she was not in the office at that time of the alleged conversation, although the pair did attend a long-planned Christmas lunch at the celebrity chef-run Luke’s Kitchen in Sydney’s Pitt Street later that day.

During the lunch, Anderson was informed by Chris Oliver-Taylor, the ABC’s chief content officer, that Lattouf would be taken off-air.

Emails revealing the turmoil in the upper echelons of the ABC amid an escalating email campaign against Lattouf over her views on the Israel-Gaza war have been referenced extensively during the court case. The complaints called for Lattouf’s removal from ABC Sydney Radio, and within days this had happened.

In one extensively quoted missive, Buttrose asked Anderson if Lattouf had been replaced and said she was “over getting emails about her”.

Buttrose told the court this month that she did not want Lattouf taken off-air and that if she “wanted somebody removed, I’d be franker than that”.