Key events
Star witness today is former ABC chair Ita Buttrose
Good morning.
There are still five witnesses to give evidence after two days were added to the original five-day schedule which blew out last week.
The star witness today is former ABC chair Ita Buttrose. The court has previously heard details of emails where it appears she was urging management to remove Lattouf from air after receiving dozens of complaints about her employment.
But first up today is the former head of ABC Sydney local radio Steve Ahern who is the man who hired Lattouf for five days in December 2023, a decision described as “a negligent error of judgement” by the managing director David Anderson.
Last week Anderson told the court he believed Lattouf should never have been appointed as a casual radio host because of her “partisan view on Israel-Gaza”.
On Friday the court heard Chris Oliver-Taylor, the ABC executive who sacked Lattouf for sharing a Human Rights Watch post, felt “pressure from above” after Buttrose sent him all the complaints she was receiving.
“The pressure was now building, the concerns were rising,” Oliver-Taylor said of the situation on 19 December 2023, after Buttrose wrote to him directly and said she would be forwarding on all complaints she received about Lattouf.
To catch up on how things wrapped on Friday, here’s our report:
Lattouf trial reveals an ABC so paralysed by process even its managers can’t keep up
In case you missed it, Hugh Riminton on Saturday wrote about the first week of the federal court hearing.
If one thing has emerged from journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s quixotic battle with the ABC over her sacking 14 months ago, it is that the public broadcaster appears to be so weighed down by procedures, policy codes and guidelines that even senior management can’t keep up.
Read Riminton’s take on events here:
Welcome
Hi, I’m Amanda Meade, media correspondent at Guardian Australia, and I’ll be watching day six of the Antoinette Lattouf v ABC unlawful termination claim.
We will bring you all the evidence as it unfolds from 10.15am.
Over today and Wednesday we will hear evidence from the remaining five witnesses, all from the ABC: Ita Buttrose, Steve Ahern, Simon Melkman, Ben Latimer and Elizabeth Green.
