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Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Ita Buttrose's extraordinary justification for spending thousands of taxpayer dollars on chauffeurs to her favourite Italian restaurant
Former ABC chair Ita Buttrose says claims she wasted taxpayer funds on luxury car hire trips are 'irrelevant'. 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.
The Guardian
24-02-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Ita Buttrose claims ‘inconsistencies' in ABC boss David Anderson's affidavit in Antoinette Lattouf case
Former ABC chair Ita Buttrose has pointed to alleged 'inconsistencies' in David Anderson's affidavit for a federal court case, citing differing details of where and when the outgoing managing director told Buttrose that Antoinette Lattouf had been sacked. In an explosive letter to ABC lawyers seen by Guardian Australia, Buttrose last week urged the ABC to tell Lattouf's lawyers about the alleged inconsistencies in Anderson's version of events as set out in his affidavit. The affidavit was filed in court in Lattouf's unlawful termination case against the ABC which returns for closing arguments on Thursday. Guardian Australia does not suggest that Anderson's testimony in the federal court case was anything but his honest recollection of events that took place in late 2023. Buttrose in her letter demanded the ABC contact Lattouf's lawyers 'as a matter of absolute urgency' and, if they failed to do so, she said she would 'take the appropriate action'. The evidence Buttrose refers to is an invoice from a hire car company which transported the chair and the managing director to a Christmas lunch on Wednesday 20 December 2023 – which she claims suggests that Anderson's affidavit was contradictory. It was the same day that Lattouf was told she would not be returning for the final two days of the ABC radio show she was hosting. Phone calls and texts were flying between Anderson and the ABC's content chief, Chris Oliver-Taylor. When Anderson left for the lunch Lattouf had not yet been removed. A casual broadcaster, Lattouf was dismissed from hosting ABC's Sydney Mornings program in December 2023 and later brought an unlawful termination case before the federal court. 'In the interests of transparency and our legal obligations to do so, the invoice from 'Corporate Cars Australia' must be provided to Ms Lattouf,' Buttrose writes in Thursday's letter, adding a deadline of 2pm on Friday. The ABC does not appear to have taken any action in response to Buttrose's letter. The publicly available court file does not show any documents having been filed by the ABC since it received Buttrose's letter. According to Buttrose, she was picked up at home on 20 December 2023 and driven in the hire car to pick up Anderson at the ABC's Ultimo headquarters. Buttrose points to Anderson's affidavit where he states the two met at the ABC Ultimo office 'outside her office on Level 14 to travel to lunch together'. 'Clearly, Mr Anderson was not having a conversation with me on Level 14 at Ultimo, when I wasn't even in the building,' Buttrose wrote to the ABC's lawyers last week. She also highlights his account of a conversation he had with Buttrose in which she said words to the effect of 'we're just going to have to agree to disagree' that management had decided to keep Lattouf on air until Friday. Buttrose alleges 'no such conversation ever took place; and this is corroborated with irrefutable evidence which the ABC now has'. A conference call with the ABC's legal department on 18 February 'discussed evidence [Buttrose] had that completely refuted Mr Anderson's affidavit', according to the letter. 'I then emailed that evidence to everyone in this group,' Buttrose said. 'That evidence being, an invoice from 'Corporate Cars Australia' that showed that at 12:10pm on 20 December 2023, a car picked me up from my home address in Redfern; and at 12:30pm, that car pulled up to the front of the ABC offices at Ultimo.' Buttrose's alleged inconsistencies do not appear to be material to the case. The federal court has heard that Lattouf was sacked while Anderson and Buttrose were at lunch and Oliver-Taylor told the managing director initially via text of his decision, which was then conveyed to Buttrose. Buttrose disputes Anderson's version of events about how the matter unfolded. She disputes Anderson's recollection that after the lunch Anderson had a conversation with Oliver-Taylor about Lattouf's sacking 'as he travelled in a taxi back to the ABC offices'. 'He was, in fact, in a hire car with me,' Buttrose said in her seven-page letter. Buttrose said the hire car invoice shows they left the restaurant at 3pm and Anderson was dropped back at the office first – before she was driven home. In his affidavit sworn in October 2024, and released by the federal court, Anderson states he rang Oliver-Taylor back during lunch and was told 'we have decided we need to take her [Lattouf] off the air'. Anderson said 'immediately after hanging up from the call with Mr Oliver-Taylor, I informed Ms Buttrose about the conversation'. In her October 2024 affidavit released by the court, Buttrose states: 'I do not now recall the discussions that Mr Anderson and I had during the course of lunch on 20 December … I do not recall whether we discussed Ms Lattouf.' He further states that after the lunch he assisted Buttrose to her hire car and then got a taxi back to the ABC. 'During my taxi ride back to the office, I called Mr Oliver-Taylor, and (to the best of my recollection) we had a conversation' where Oliver-Taylor provided more details including the allegation that Lattouf 'posted on social media against instructions'. An ABC spokesperson declined to comment on the substance of Buttrose's letter. 'The matter is before the court and it would be inappropriate for the ABC to comment while proceedings are under way,' he said. Buttrose declined to comment. Final submissions in the unlawful termination case are scheduled to be heard on Thursday and Friday before justice Darryl Rangiah retires to consider his verdict.
