The ABC says it’s spent one point one million dollars on external lawyers in its unfair dismissal case brought by Australian journalist and host of The Weekend Briefing Antoinette Lattouf.
Antoinette is suing the public broadcaster after she was taken off air three days into a five-day stint on ABC Radio Sydney in December 2023.
Hear more from today’s headlines on this episode of The Briefing:
This happened after she reposted a Human Rights Watch report accusing Israel of using starvation as a tactic of war.
The ABC’s Acting Managing Director Melanie Kleyn told a parliamentary committee yesterday the ABC did not sack her. Klein did say however, the broadcaster has lessons to learn.
Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi asked Kleyn whether ABC regretted not settling the case for eighty-five thousand dollars and a public apology in July last year.
Kleyn replied, “Would the ABC have preferred not to spend $1.1 million? The answer to that is yes. That’s why we have attempted to settle the matter on a number of occasions.”
ABC’s chief people officer Deena Amorelli told Senate estimates the broadcaster will ‘apologise’ for its legal argument that Antoinette had to prove the existence of a Lebanese race.
After facing significant backlash internally and externally, the legal argument was dropped, Amorelli saying it should have “never been made”.
The case returns to the Federal Court tomorrow for closing submissions.
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