• Watch the hearing live here from 9.45am (AEDT)

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful termination case against the ABC.

I’m Michaela Whitbourn and I’ll be keeping you informed of the latest developments in the Federal Court in Sydney. Today is slated to be the final day of the trial, if time estimates are to be trusted.

If you’re just catching up on the trial now, here’s a run-down: Lattouf was told not to return to work three days into a five-day casual contract as a fill-in Mornings presenter on ABC Radio Sydney in December 2023.

She alleges she was unlawfully terminated because of her political opinions about the Israel-Gaza war, which were not articulated on radio but on her social media accounts, as well as because of her race or national extraction as a woman of Lebanese, Arab and Middle Eastern descent.

The ABC took Lattouf off-air after she shared a post critical of Israel from non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch on Instagram on December 19, 2023. She added the caption: “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.”

She claims the ABC bowed to pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists in removing her from air on December 20. The broadcaster had received complaints about her appointment as a fill-in presenter even before the December 19 post, the court has heard.

The ABC says it did not terminate her employment. It says her contract ended as planned after five days on December 22, 2023, but she was not required to work her last two shifts.

Antoinette Lattouf is seeking a range of orders from the Federal Court, including that the ABC pay her compensation and pecuniary penalties.

She is also seeking declarations that the national broadcaster contravened the Fair Work Act.

In addition, Lattouf has asked the court to make an order reinstating her “to a commensurate position to that from which the [ABC] dismissed her”, her lawyers say in court documents.

Justice Darryl Rangiah raised an interesting question at the end of yesterday’s hearing.

The court has heard that The Australian newspaper put questions to the ABC about Antoinette Lattouf and her views on the Israel-Gaza war just before the decision was made to take her off-air in December 2023.

It published a story at 2.39pm on December 20, shortly after Lattouf was told to pack up her things and leave. The article asserted that Lattouf had been “sacked”, although the ABC maintains that she was not.

At the end of yesterday’s hearing, Rangiah told one of Lattouf’s barristers, Philip Boncardo: “I’m going to be asking Mr [Ian] Neil [SC, acting for the ABC] tomorrow about the relevance of the apparent leaking of the information concerning Ms Lattouf’s case to The Australian and whether that factors into questions of compensation.

“I raise that simply because you may wish to consider that.”

During closing submissions yesterday, Lattouf’s barrister Oshie Fagir alleged that four ABC executives including the broadcaster’s then-chair Ita Buttrose had a hand in the decision to axe Lattouf on radio over her views on the Israel-Gaza war.

Fagir said that ABC managing director David Anderson and Buttrose were both involved in the decision to dismiss Lattouf, as were the ABC’s chief content officer, Chris Oliver-Taylor, and its head of audio content, Ben Latimer.

“We say that Mr Anderson and Mr Oliver-Taylor were decision makers in the conventional sense that they exercised authority to dismiss Ms Lattouf, and that Ms Buttrose and Mr Latimer were decision makers in the broader sense … being people who materially influenced the decision to dismiss,” Fagir said.

Fagir submitted that Anderson was a decision maker because he had a “right of veto” over Oliver-Taylor’s call to remove Lattouf, but he did not exercise it. This amounted to “an approval”, he said.

Buttrose brought “pressure” to bear on Anderson and Oliver-Taylor, Fagir said, including by emailing both of them, and “her conduct had a material effect on the ultimate outcome”.

“Ms Buttrose’s attitude never wavered at any point,” he said.

Fagir said the “group of campaigners” was also “materially influential”.

During a defiant stint in the witness box this month, Buttrose told the court that she did not want Lattouf taken off-air and “didn’t put pressure on anybody”.

She said an email in which she asked Anderson if Lattouf had been replaced and said she was “over getting emails about her” was a request for an update.

It might sound like a simple question, but whether the ABC sacked Antoinette Lattouf is a key issue in the case, and it must be considered by Federal Court Justice Darryl Rangiah.

Lattouf alleges her employment was:

• unlawfully terminated by the ABC;
• that her political opinion and race played a role in that decision;
• and that the national broadcaster breached both its enterprise agreement and the Fair Work Act.

She had been engaged to present the Mornings show on ABC Radio Sydney as a casual fill-in host for five days from December 18, 2023, but was taken off-air after her third shift.

The ABC says in a written defence that it “did not terminate” Lattouf’s employment, “summarily or otherwise”. Instead, it claims her employment ended as intended after five days, “at the conclusion of [her] ... rostered shift on 22 December 2023”. She was ultimately paid in January 2024 for all five shifts.

The national broadcaster says that “in accordance with the terms of [Lattouf’s] contract”, it “did not require [her] ... to perform any work” for the last two shifts on December 21 and 22, but this did not mean she was sacked.

Rangiah will have to decide whether Lattouf was sacked and, if so, whether this was unlawful.

The Fair Work Commission’s Deputy President Gerard Boyce said in a decision in June last year that the employment relationship between Lattouf and the ABC was “terminated at the ABC’s initiative”.

However, Rangiah is not bound by that finding. As Boyce explained in his decision last year, the FWC has a limited role in unlawful termination cases.

The commission conducts a conference between the parties to assist them to resolve their dispute by agreement, or issues a certificate if a resolution can’t be agreed. That certificate paves the way for proceedings to be filed in court.

Today is scheduled to be the last day of closing submissions from the parties, if everything goes to plan.

Barristers acting for Lattouf and the ABC are drawing together threads of the evidence heard in court this month and marshalling arguments about why Justice Darryl Rangiah should find in their favour.

Lattouf’s team delivered most of their closing arguments yesterday.

They say Lattouf was never given an explicit direction not to post on social media at all about the Israel-Gaza war during her planned five-day stint on ABC Sydney radio in December 2023, and that the broadcaster dismissed her unlawfully because of her political opinion and race.

The ABC’s barrister, Ian Neil, SC, will deliver closing submissions today. The broadcaster maintains that Lattouf was not sacked and that the court should dismiss her unlawful termination claim.

You can read more about yesterday’s submissions here.

• Watch the hearing live here from 9.45am (AEDT)

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of journalist Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful termination case against the ABC.

I’m Michaela Whitbourn and I’ll be keeping you informed of the latest developments in the Federal Court in Sydney. Today is slated to be the final day of the trial, if time estimates are to be trusted.

If you’re just catching up on the trial now, here’s a run-down: Lattouf was told not to return to work three days into a five-day casual contract as a fill-in Mornings presenter on ABC Radio Sydney in December 2023.

She alleges she was unlawfully terminated because of her political opinions about the Israel-Gaza war, which were not articulated on radio but on her social media accounts, as well as because of her race or national extraction as a woman of Lebanese, Arab and Middle Eastern descent.

The ABC took Lattouf off-air after she shared a post critical of Israel from non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch on Instagram on December 19, 2023. She added the caption: “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.”

She claims the ABC bowed to pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists in removing her from air on December 20. The broadcaster had received complaints about her appointment as a fill-in presenter even before the December 19 post, the court has heard.

The ABC says it did not terminate her employment. It says her contract ended as planned after five days on December 22, 2023, but she was not required to work her last two shifts.