Ita Buttrose's extraordinary justification for spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on chauffeurs to her favourite Italian restaurant
The 82-year-old media veteran spent at least $3,625 on luxury car hire services in the 12 months between January 2023 and January 2024, documents obtained under a Freedom of Information request by The Australian revealed.
Internal policy at the ABC says staff should be 'discouraged' from using chauffeur-driven cars and that travel cost should be 'necessary, controlled, and defensible under public scrutiny'.
Buttrose told The Australian those rules did not apply to her because the chairperson was 'not considered staff'.
'Directors of the ABC are not employees... so your questions are irrelevant,' she told The Australian.
Invoices obtained by the newspaper revealed Buttrose repeatedly charted trips with Corporate Cars Australia - a chauffeur service that brands itself as a 'luxury car hire company' offering a 'first-class experience with 24/7 chauffeur service in Sydney, Melbourne and Australia-wide'.
Among its fleet are 'only the latest model luxury vehicles' including sedans, stretch limousines, executive vans, and luxury coaches.
While she was boss at the broadcaster, she used the service for many trips to and from her Redfern home, the ABC's Ultimo offices and a number of swanky restaurants and venues across the city.
Buttrose twice used the car service to visit Beppi's Italian, a Darlinghurst staple she penned a review for some 70 years after her father, Charles Buttrose, did the same in his role as editor of The Daily Mirror.
On October 11 2023, Buttrose spent a combined $312.26 on a trip to and from her Redfern home via work and Beppi's Italian.
The journey included a $115.38 charge for the 2.4km drive from her home to the broadcaster's Ultimo headquarters.
Buttrose, who took home a $211,297 salary in 2023 as ABC chair, sold her two-bedroom high-rise Redfern apartment earlier this year for $1.67million after purchasing it for $1.55million two years earlier.
It's not the first time the media veteran's use of the luxury car hire has made headlines.
Earlier this year, she used a receipt from the car hire company to dispute evidence raised by ABC managing director David Anderson in the unlawful termination case brought against the broadcaster by former interim radio host Antoinette Lattouf.
Lattouf was let go from her fill-in post on ABC Radio Sydney's Mornings program in December 2023 after she shared a Human Rights Watch post that claimed Israel used starvation as a 'weapon of war' in Gaza.
The journalist brought her case to the Federal Court after the Fair Work Commission found she had been sacked by the broadcaster.
In that case, Anderson claimed he had shared a conversation with Buttrose the day Lattouf was let go at ABC's Ultimo office on December 20, 2023 before attending a Christmas lunch event.
He claimed Buttrose told him they were 'going to have to agree to disagree' on his position Lattouf would see out the week at the company.
In a letter sent to ABC's lawyers, Buttrose claimed receipts from the car hire service proved she had been been picked up from her Redfern home and therefore could not have spoken with Anderson at the Ultimo office before the lunch.
Those receipts, obtained earlier this year by Daily Mail Australia, included a $108.99 charge for a car hire from a redacted location to Luke's Kitchen, a destination restaurant in the lobby of the ritzy Kimpton Margot Hotel in Sydney, via ABC's Ultimo offices at 12.10pm.
The FOI request documents obtained by The Australian would suggest the trip began at Buttrose's Redfern home, in line with her claims.
She also challenged Anderson's evidence relating to a conversation he claimed to have had with the ABC's former content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor in a taxi back to the Ultimo offices after the lunch.
Buttrose claimed the conversation could not have taken place as Anderson had joined her in a car hire which dropped him at the offices before taking her home.
Invoices appear to verify Buttrose's version of the itinerary, including a further $108.99 charge for a trip from the Pitt Street restaurant to a redacted location believed to be Buttrose's Redfern home via ABC's offices at 3pm.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest that Mr Anderson's evidence in the federal court case was anything but his honest recollection of events only that Ms Buttrose has contacted the ABC's lawyers to dispute them.
Justice Darryl Rangiah has yet to deliver his verdict on Lattouf's case against the broadcaster.
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