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Hello, and welcome back to our coverage of the Antoinette Lattouf v ABC trial in the Federal Court.

I am Calum Jaspan, we’re into the second week of Lattouf’s unlawful termination case in the Federal Court. Proceedings will get under way at 10.15am AEDT.

If you’re just catching up, Lattouf was sacked three days into a five-day casual contract as a fill-in presenter on ABC Radio Sydney in December 2023.

Lattouf is arguing she was unlawfully terminated, that her political opinion and race played a role in the decision, and that the ABC breached its enterprise agreement by doing so.

While we’re on break still, a quick note on the released court documents, contained in Oliver-Taylor’s affidavit, recently re-released by the Federal Court, which shows Buttrose personally responded to dozens of complainants regarding Lattouf.

In each of the responses, Buttrose stuck to a strict format, thanking them for their email, saying the contents had been “noted”, and that Oliver-Taylor was “dealing” with the matter.

This was despite managing director David Anderson telling her earlier in the week he would write back to all the complainants at the close of the week, when Lattouf’s contract had ended.

We’ll hear from Buttrose a bit later on.

As we take a break, we can bring you images of former ABC chair Ita Buttrose arriving at the Federal Court taken by Kate Geraghty.

Buttrose is scheduled to appear today once Ahern is finished giving evidence.

The former chair finished her single term in March last year.

“You do not find anywhere in your affidavit any mention of any discussion or communication with Mr. Oliver-Taylor on 18 December about you instructing Ms Green or anyone else about Ms Lattouf’s social media, do you?” Boncardo asks.

There is some contestation over the time Green actually spoke to Lattouf, and gave her the alleged direction not to post anything controversial about the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“On that day, we had several discussions to follow up [on] what Chris [Oliver-Taylor, chief content officer] had asked us to do, which was to make sure that she was aware of her obligations for impartiality and that she should be advised not to post anything about Israel-Gaza,” Ahern says.

We’ve now adjourned for a 20-minute morning break.

“I was confident that I had passed on Chris Oliver-Taylor’s email and wishes about not appearing to be impartial by anything she posted on social media,” Ahern says.

“I’d had that discussion with Elizabeth. Elizabeth assured me that she’d had the discussion with Antoinette.”

These are “standard practice” conversations, Ahern says when there is any doubt whether the audience would be concerned about something.

Again, Boncardo presses Ahern on whether he had actually informed Oliver-Taylor he had given Green or anyone else an instruction about Lattouf’s posting on social media on the afternoon of Monday, December 18, 2023.

Ahern is being asked about what advice was given to Lattouf on her first day with the ABC, after complaints came in about her presence on air.

He agrees that he was asked to check with ABC Radio Sydney content director Elizabeth Green that Lattouf was aware she shouldn’t post anything controversial about Israel-Gaza.

“I was asked by Chris Oliver-Taylor to make sure that she didn’t post anything about Israel-Gaza that was not impartial,” Ahern says. He says this was in an email.

Boncardo presses Ahern on the specific instructions that were given to Lattouf and the conversations he had with his colleagues at that time.

There is a distinction between Lattouf having bias in her social media posts and an audience perception of bias, Ahern says.

“The ABC is very alive to the perception of audiences and the taxpayers of Australia in what it does,” Ahern says.“They’re two different things in my mind.”

Despite this, he did not raise any concerns with content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor, he says.

Complaints relating to an article Lattouf wrote about protests at the Sydney Opera House were “without any substance” and “hyperbolic”, Ahern says.

After looking at Lattouf’s socials, Ahern says he described her views as being “against Israel’s attacks on Gaza”.

After undertaking his own investigation, Ahern says he did not consider Lattouf to be biased in the context of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Getting back to Ahern’s cross-examination, he has so far been quizzed about his knowledge of the ABC’s impartiality guidelines, among other things.

He is now being asked about some complaints that were forwarded to him by the ABC’s outgoing content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor regarding Lattouf’s presence on ABC Radio Sydney.

Lattouf’s barrister Philip Boncardo asks him if he pointed out that the complaints were misguided, and says he did point out they were “inaccurate”.

The ABC has issued an additional statement on the withdrawal of its race defence, as we heard earlier, saying its argument “regrettably” caused distress in some sections of the community and its workforce.

“This was not the ABC’s intention,” a spokesman said.

This is quite the U-turn from the ABC.

“Today, the ABC made clear to the court that it does not dispute or contest Ms Lattouf’s race or national extraction being Lebanese, Middle Eastern, or Arab.”

The ABC continues to deny that any action was taken against Lattouf because of her political opinion, race or national extraction.

Former ABC radio executive Steve Ahern has now been called to the witness box. Ahern was acting as head of the ABC Capital City Network during the week Lattouf was employed.

He is being cross-examined by Lattouf’s barrister, Phillip Boncardo, who begins by asking him about the usual audience that could have been expected to have been listening during Lattouf’s week filling in on ABC Radio Sydney.

Ahern says it would be fair to say several hundred thousand Australians may have listened to the show that week.