One of Australia’s most prominent cases of media legal battles concluded in late September after the Federal Court ordered the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to pay Antoinette Lattouf $150,000 in penalties following a ruling of unlawful termination.
Lattouf’s employment was terminated in 2023 after sharing a post from Human Rights Watch on her Instagram account and making comments on social media regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza, adding the comment “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.”
Now, Lattouf has broken her silence on the ruling in an interview with LiSTNR podcast “The Beefing.” As reported by Mediaweek, the former ABC presenter described the experience as painful and personal, saying it felt closer to a personal heartbreak than a legal dispute.
“I felt heartbroken, like an ex-boyfriend,” she said, adding that the ABC was an organisation she “really loved.”
“While I was always determined to keep going because I knew that I had done nothing wrong and that the ABC needs to be independent and fierce and not bound to lobby pressure, it was just so heartbreaking to keep going,” she continued.
While the courts found the ABC had acted unlawfully and issued the hefty fine in pecuniary penalties, the finances were never Lattouf’s focus. “The ABC has spent well over $2 million of taxpayer money fighting me,” she said at the time of the decision, framing the case as a fight for accountability, integrity and public trust.
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Lattouf said she had hoped the broadcaster would reconsider its stance long before the matter reached this point, saying “I thought the ABC would at some point stop and apologise.”
While the case has formally concluded in court, Lattouf’s remarks make clear that the impact of the dispute extends well beyond the ruling.
“I’m not just defending my case,” she said. “This is about how public institutions respond when the personal and political collide.”