Unsolved mystery: who leaked Antoinette Lattouf's sacking to The Australian?
A mystery at the heart of this week's biggest media story is who leaked the story about Antoinette Lattouf's sacking from the ABC to The Australian?
The Oz had the story live on its site before Lattouf made it home on the day she was let go, she told the court, and the court also heard that there were a number of details in the story that could only have been known by a small number of senior people at the broadcaster.
Laura Tingle, the ABC's chief political correspondent, wrote to the then chair, Ita Buttrose, to express her 'deep concern' that someone senior had leaked information about Lattouf's dismissal to The Australian, an email read aloud in court revealed.
'Whether or not she breached the social media code, the fact that someone apparently senior briefed The Australian on it and (I suspect) verballed your actual role in any action taken on it is almost as spectacular an error of judgment as any social media breach,' Tingle wrote.
Several of the witnesses, including Buttrose, were asked explicitly if they were the source of the leak or knew who had been. All denied it.
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Content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor even offered some additional commentary on the mystery of leaks at the ABC. He had told the court he had taken a call from The Australian and said 'no comment' but was unaware of who had leaked the story about Lattouf.
'You have no idea how The Australian was privy to this information?' Lattouf's barrister, Oshie Fagir, had pressed Oliver-Taylor.
'No, I do not,' said Oliver-Taylor, who went on to say: 'How did the Guardian two weeks ago know that I was about to resign? They did, though. How did that happen? … Journalists have ways into the ABC.'
Staying with Lattouf a moment longer, while the court battle has kept most of the media busy with news stories, live blogs and analysis for the past two weeks, for the Daily Mail it was a chance for some investigative fashion journalism.
The Mail's picture-heavy format meant that its Lattouf stories featured half a dozen or so photographs of the journalist entering the federal court building each day, from different angles, as well as descriptions of her choice of outfit each day.
They even ran a separate story on Lattouf's 'courthouse catwalk', with a breakdown of the labels she wore each day to court, the cost of some of her clothing, shoes and handbags and an estimated total of the cost of her court wardrobe.
The new host of Media Watch has come out of the gates with a bang.
Linton Besser, in his second episode hosting the iconic program, turned his attention to Channel Nine's Find My Beach House.
In the show, prospective buyers searching for a home by the sea are taken around beach houses by host Shelley Craft before deciding which one they want to buy.
Besser examined one episode, in which young couple Lachie and Tonya considered three homes in Mount Martha, Victoria, eventually deciding to buy house number three.
'We've lost a lot of sleep over this,' Lachie says when Craft asks him if they have settled on a home.
'For us right now, house number three feels like it's the one,' Tonya says.
Which is lucky because, as Media Watch exposed, the house they decided on in the show is one they already owned and in fact had built themselves on the plot of land they had bought eight years prior, documenting the build on social media.
Media Watch spoke to a former producer of the show who said roughly 50% of the properties featured on it are already owned by the people featured on the show.
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After inquiries from Media Watch, Channel Nine scrubbed the series from its website.
'We know these shows aren't trying to be Four Corners but talk about selling your audience and advertisers down the river,' Besser said.
Advertising executives celebrated this week after a LinkedIn pile-on apparently led to a billboard spruiking an anti-renewables message being taken down.
The billboard, which carried the message ''Renewables' cost the earth', accompanied by a picture of wind turbines and earth-moving equipment, was spotted in the marginal seat of Paterson, north of Newcastle, by the ad executive Mike Spirkovski, who shared a photograph of the billboard on LinkedIn on 10 February.
The billboard was funded by rightwing campaign group Advance Australia, which has been running a campaign to expose the 'truth' about renewables, including a 50-minute documentary called Dollars and destruction: How renewables harm our farms and cost the earth.
James Greet, the co-founder of the Payback Project, shared Spirkovski's post and wrote his own message of outrage on LinkedIn, tagging oOh!media, which owns the billboard, calling it out for allowing the ad, in spite of its commitment to sustainability, as a founding member of Ad Net Zero.
One day later, on 11 February, oOh! replied on LinkedIn saying it had removed the advertisement 'following an additional internal review and given our business' strong commitment to sustainability and reducing our operational impact on the planet'.
oOh! received a lot of plaudits from people on LinkedIn for the decision.
'oOh! today you made the right call, swiftly and without hesitation,' wrote Spirkovski. 'Thank you for acting with integrity and standing by your commitment to responsible advertising. Your decision helps ensure that misinformation doesn't undermine the important conversations we need to have about our environment. I appreciate your leadership on this.'
The only thing is, according to Advance Australia, which paid for the billboard, the billboard was only scheduled to run until 9 February, the day before Spirkovski posted about it on LinkedIn and two days before oOh! said it had removed it 'following an additional review'.
Advance told Weekly Beast: 'We are surprised at oOh!media's statement because the billboard in question ran for the full contractual period. We have received no correspondence from them about the billboard. As far as we are aware there was no issue, oOh!media has been paid in full, and the billboard performed above expectations.'
oOh! Media said in a statement that it did act in response to the LinkedIn post, but did not dispute Advance's claim the billboard ran for its full contract period.
An oOh! spokesperson said: 'oOh! acted to remove the campaign following a LinkedIn post and in line with our sustainability commitments. In regional locations, classic billboards can remain in situ for longer than their prescribed campaign period, however on this occasion we expedited de-installation. While we have robust procedures in place to review sensitive advertising content, oOh! has initiated further steps to strengthen these processes.'
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Deep in the 185-page Lattouf judgment is a forensic critique of the ABC's top brass
Buried in justice Darryl Rangiah's 185-page judgment that found the ABC breached the Fair Work Act in its termination of Antoinette Lattouf is a critical assessment of the behaviour of the broadcaster's top management, including former chair Ita Buttrose. Four of the key figures in Lattouf's removal– Buttrose, the then managing director David Anderson, former content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor and Sydney radio manager Steve Ahern – have since departed the ABC. But 18 months ago, they were among senior managers in a 'a state of panic' after an 'orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air', the federal court judge said. Rangiah traced every text, email and internal discussion between multiple layers of ABC management in December 2023 and compared them with the evidence they gave in the seven-day trial, lifting the veil on decision-making at the public broadcaster. Some individuals came out better than others. Buttrose, Rangiah said, 'made clear her displeasure' at Lattouf's appointment at the outset, forwarding email complaints from pro-Israel lobbyists to Oliver-Taylor. She demanded to know why an 'activist' had been engaged in the first place, putting pressure on Oliver-Taylor to act, Rangiah found. He said when Buttrose asked David Anderson: 'Why can't she come down with flu or Covid or a stomach upset?' the chair was expressing her 'desire for Ms Lattouf to be taken off air immediately under the pretence of illness'. In the witness box, Buttrose claimed the expression was 'just a face-saving idea'. When it came to her performance under cross-examination, Rangiah was not impressed. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'Ms Buttrose's evidence under cross-examination was somewhat theatrical and difficult to follow at times,' he said. 'She had a strong belief that Ms Lattouf was an activist who should have never been engaged by the ABC and she wanted Ms Lattouf gone as soon as possible.' But while Buttrose's forwarding of complaints about Lattouf placed pressure on Oliver-Taylor, Rangiah said that the chair did 'not materially contribute' to the decision to take the journalist off air, finding that this was Oliver-Taylor's decision alone. In his assessment of Oliver-Taylor, Rangiah found some of his evidence about whether Lattouf was given a direction not to post about Gaza was 'quite implausible', ultimately finding that he does 'not accept' this evidence and Lattouf was not given a direction. At issue was whether Lattouf had been given a direction by her manager, Elizabeth Green, not to post on social media or just a suggestion to keep a low profile. Oliver-Taylor claimed in court that there was no difference between asking someone to do something and 'directing' them. When it came to the former managing director, Rangiah found Anderson 'materially contributed' to Oliver-Taylor's decision to remove Lattouf by 'expressing his opinion that Ms Lattouf had anti-Semitic views' after inspecting her social media accounts. Lower down the chain, Rangiah was critical of evidence given by Ahern, as well as radio chief Ben Latimer and editorial adviser Simon Melkman – the latter two for 'their lack of recollection' about what was said at a Teams meeting before Lattouf was taken off air. 'The evidence of Mr Latimer, Mr Ahern and Mr Melkman under cross-examination left me with substantial doubts as to the reliability and credibility of their evidence on controversial matters,' Rangiah said. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'I reject their evidence asserting that Mr Oliver-Taylor was not informed in the Teams Meeting that Ms Green had not given Ms Lattouf a direction and had only given her advice.' The judge was definitive in his assessment of what caused the 'panic' on the executive floor and why emails were flying between them. 'Ms Buttrose and Mr Anderson received multiple letters and emails complaining about Ms Lattouf, which sought to pressure the ABC to not employ her and/or terminate her employment for reasons including her political opinion and/or race and/or national extraction,' he found. 'He [Anderson] considered that it was of critical importance for the ABC to have a high degree of actual and perceived impartiality in relation to the Israel/Gaza war. 'The complaints, as they developed over the ensuing days, were evidently a coordinated campaign to pressure the ABC into taking Ms Lattouf off air or ceasing to employ her.' Of Lattouf's direct manager, Green, Rangiah was highly complimentary, finding 'no doubt about the reliability and accuracy' of her evidence. 'I accept Ms Green to be a reliable witness and accept her account of all her discussions with Mr Ahern,' he said. 'In summary, Ms Green made it explicitly clear she had not given any direction to Ms Lattouf and had merely provided advice.'
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Super tax debate highlights everything wrong with Australia's media and economic system
The reason why we don't have free dental in Medicare is because we subsidise the inheritance of the wealthiest people in Australia. I know it might shock you to see it written plainly, it might even annoy you. But it is the truth. The way superannuation is mostly covered by the media in this country is about how to avoid paying tax and how to use it to fund inheritance. Take the headline this week in Nine newspapers 'money column': 'We have $8m in an SMSF. How can we avoid the new super tax?' You could hardly find a more pointed example of everything wrong with Australia's media and economic system. I look forward to the SMH and others providing advice on how people on jobseeker can work for cash to avoid losing any benefits and paying extra tax. Similarly, it doesn't take long for any story about the proposed changes to the tax breaks on superannuation balances over $3m to mention inheritance. That's because $3m is so far beyond what anyone needs to retire comfortably that only the most self-delusional think they need more than that to survive. Heck, the main way Peter Dutton criticised the changes was to label them a 'quasi inheritance tax'. The best one of the genre is an AFR headline: 'New $3m super tax is 'stealing my children's inheritance''. You might expect that from the AFR, but you would hope for better from the ABC. On Tuesday night, ABC's 7.30 reported on a pair of farmers who were worried about the changes to the superannuation tax breaks because the combined balances of the couple was $5.5m and so might soon have a combined $6m (ie more than $3m each). The 7.30 story had no mention of inheritance, but the written version noted that 'the money isn't only being used to fund their retirement. The plan is for it to help fund the inheritances of their other children without necessitating selling off the family farm.' Let's stop right there. We don't give tax breaks on superannuation so that you can fund the inheritance of your children. Tattoo that on your eyeballs. Superannuation tax breaks are designed to encourage you to save so you do not need to rely on the age pension. It is not so your kids can get a head start in life. That might be a nice thing for you to do, but there is zero public benefit in giving you a tax break to do it. The story also contained the claim by the couple's son that 'Mum and Dad will be up for an extra $120,000 a year'. According to the report, the extra tax was due to the anticipated unrealised capital gain of the farming assets (the wind turbines and the agricultural chemical businesses) once the couple's super balance passed $6m (ie $3m each). Well now. If your Spidey senses are tingling, you should be a journalist. Because that seems a rather bold claim. Consider that to pay $120,000 in tax on just plain old income you need to earn $342,000 a year. If the graph does not display click here Given the average tax on that is 35.1%, we know that cannot be the case for super, because super earnings are only taxed at 15% until the balance goes above $3m and then the earnings attributable to the amount above $3m are taxed at 30% – both below 35%. So, for that claim to be true, the earnings on their superannuation (including unrealised capital gains) would need to be well over $342,000. How much? Well, the Treasury has given us a handy fact sheet that lets us work it out. For one person with a $3m super balance, their fund would need to increase by $2m for them to have to pay an extra $120,000 (yes, just a 6% tax rate). But what if the $120,000 is combined? In that case, both their funds would need to grow in a year from $3m to $4.3m. Each would pay $60,035 on that $1.3m unrealised gains. Yep, a tax rate of just 4.6% each. If the graph does not display click here Consider as well that an ordinary income earner pays an average tax rate of 4.6% when they earn just $25,500. Those with super balances of over $3m are still getting a tax break because if it was taxed like normal income they would pay 45% tax not 30%. These tax breaks cost money. Money that the government has decided it is better to spend than, for example, to include dental in Medicare. Let's do some maths. The cost of putting dental in Medicare, which would include 'preventative and therapeutic dental services, including regular check-ups and teeth cleans, crowns, orthodontic treatment, oral surgeries, periodontics and prosthodontics' is estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Office to be $13.63bn in the first year. That is a lot of money. But not compared to how much each year the government gives in tax breaks to the richest 10% on their superannuation – most of whom will not be eligible of the age pension, and thus are getting a tax break for no public good, and much of which will go towards inheritance. In 2025-26, the Treasury estimates these breaks will cost the budget $22bn. If the graph does not display click here When the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, was asked about dental in Medicare during the election campaign he told reporters that 'we've got to make sure that we can afford it and make sure there's room for it in the budget'. OK, then. Let's not cut all the super tax concessions for the richest 10%. Let's still give them $8bn a year in tax breaks to help ensure they have stonks more money than they need for retirement. Great, we have now found room in the budget to pay for dental in Medicare. Dental in Medicare or tax breaks to the richest so they can give money tax free to their kids? Budget and governing are about choices, and so too is how the media covers it. Greg Jericho is a Guardian columnist and policy director at the Centre for Future Work
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
Contempt proceedings against SMH and Age staff in Lattouf case ‘probably doomed', Nine's lawyers argue
A request by pro-Israel lobbyists to launch contempt proceedings against editors and reporters from Nine for allegedly breaching a suppression order in Antoinette Lattouf's unlawful termination case is 'probably doomed', Nine's lawyers have argued in the federal court. The editors of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, Bevan Shields and Patrick Elligett, are among eight individuals, including lawyers, named in the request. The pro-Israel lobby group have alleged the newspapers breached a suppression order in Lattouf's unlawful termination case against the ABC in four articles, the court heard. The suppression order was made to protect pro-Israel individuals who had contacted the ABC to complain about Lattouf's employment. The hearing on Wednesday began immediately after Rangiah had found Lattouf was unlawfully sacked by the ABC after an 'orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists'. Nine's lawyer Tom Blackburn SC told the hearing that the primary article in dispute was not in breach of the suppression order because it was published months before Lattouf took legal action, and therefore had no connection to the case. The article, written by Michael Bachelard and Calum Jaspan in January 2024, exposed a coordinated campaign to have Lattouf removed from the ABC. The court heard the names of people who had complained to the ABC about Lattouf were removed from the article in March, after Lattouf's trial took place in February. Blackburn told the court that Nine newspapers were never told the identities of the the nine people – who were part of the 157 members of the Lawyers for Israel group – named in the suppression order. 'We didn't know which ones were applicants,' Blackburn said. 'We couldn't be expected to just pull the articles down. 'Any contempt prosecution is very probably doomed, because the registrar would have to think we knew the identities of the protected parties.' Sue Chrysanthou SC, acting for the pro-Israel group, said that the registrar should prosecute the application for contempt to demonstrate the importance of such orders. Chrysanthou reminded the court that the order was made on the grounds of safety for her clients. She pointed to an article published in the Australian which detailed how those named had faced 'death threats'. The court heard four articles were in dispute – three of which were published before the suppression order was imposed by the court. One article was published by the Nine-owned Pedestrian. Chrysanthou argued one article, which was published the day the suppression order was made, was in breach of the order because it had an embedded hyperlink to an earlier story that had named her clients. She said that link was removed after her instructing solicitor contacted the journalist, Jaspan. The court heard that the article was then amended. The update included that members of the pro-Israel lobby had had their names suppressed. Chrysanthou argued this amendment showed Jaspan and his editors understood the 'import of the orders'. Crysanthou told the court that over half a dozen letters were sent to the Nine papers claiming they were in breach of the order, but they received no reply. 'No acknowledgment of receipt, no response, nothing,' she told the court. Blackburn said the lawyers acting on behalf of the pro-Israel group failed to inform them in these letters the exact identities of who fell under a suppression order, and also referred to a 'male' as one individual under the order. Blackburn argued the mention of a male cast 'further doubt' over claims the story breached a suppression order, given the lawyers from Nine were aware the suppression order related to nine Jewish women. The hearing will continue on 18 July.
