“The privileges of the legal profession exist not for the benefit of practitioners, but for the benefit of the public.” — Clyne v NSW Bar Association (1960) 104 CLR 186, High Court of Australia
1. The Organiser
A Sydney conveyancing lawyer was an administrator of a private WhatsApp group called “Lawyers for Israel”—approximately 156 Australian lawyers and legal professionals.
The target was Antoinette Lattouf—a fill-in presenter on ABC Radio Sydney, engaged for the Christmas break. Her first show was 18 December 2023. It was about Sydney school holidays. No Israel-Gaza content. The complaint infrastructure—talking points, templates, distribution channels—had been prepared from approximately 10 December, before she went to air.
On 20 December, at 6:54 am, the administrator posted a message to the group titled “Action of the day: call to action.” The message told the 156 lawyers to write to Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, the ABC ombudsman, and the ABC Board.
“It is important ABC hears not just from individuals in the community but specifically lawyers so they feel there is an actual legal threat.”
In another message, the administrator explained the strategy:
“I have basically written to them and told them I expect a proper response, not a generic one, by [close of business] today or I would look to engage a senior counsel. I know there is probably no actionable offence against ABC but I didn’t say I would be taking one—just investigating one. I have said that they should be terminating her employment immediately.”
“Probably no actionable offence.” The administrator knew there was no case. She said so. Then she told 156 lawyers to write to the national broadcaster in their professional capacity so the ABC would “feel” a legal threat she had just admitted did not exist.
Seven hours after the morning message, Lattouf was escorted from the building.
When The Age contacted the administrator after the messages leaked in January 2024, she called the suggestion of a coordinated campaign “fanciful.” She described the group as “a group of lawyers concerned about Israel and rising antisemitism” and stated: “Any suggestion that it is controlled by anyone is completely unfounded.”
The Federal Court called it “an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists.”
2. The Intelligence
A senior counsel with expertise in employment and industrial law—the field that governs unlawful termination—held senior positions in Australian and international Jewish community organizations.
At 7:46 am on 20 December—less than an hour after the administrator’s call to action, and hours before the ABC made any decision—the senior counsel posted to the Lawyers for Israel group:
“I understand she will be gone from morning radio from Friday.”
He had intelligence from inside the ABC before the ABC had decided anything. He acknowledged he had spoken to “someone at the ABC” but said he could not remember who.
When another member asked whether the termination related to Lattouf’s “stance on Israel or other reasons,” the senior counsel replied:
“Israel.”
Another member said Friday was “too long.” The senior counsel’s instruction to the group:
“Keep writing.”
When the messages became public, the senior counsel offered this explanation:
“Someone told me that they thought that Lattouf had overstepped the mark and would be disciplined, what does that have to do with my encouraging that course, or causing it to be brought about?”
The ECAJ’s official position was that it “did not contact the ABC about Lattouf, nor did we call for her sacking. This was a grassroots initiative of individuals exercising their right to make their objections known.” One of its senior officials—an employment law specialist—was feeding intelligence from inside the broadcaster to the group running the campaign and instructing members to keep the pressure on.
3. The 156 — The Complaints
The group had 156 members. They wrote to the ABC Managing Director, the ABC Board, the ABC Chair, and the federal Minister for Communications—simultaneously.
The complaints were near-identical. ABC Managing Director David Anderson identified them immediately: a “WhatsApp group email campaign”—“the same in each email” but “top-and-tailed slightly differently.” “Copy and paste coming through.”
The standardised elements:
- Near-universal invocation of “Clause 4 of the ABC Code of Practice”—the impartiality clause. This is not language a lay complainant reaches for spontaneously. It was templated.
- Lattouf described as “anti-Semitic,” “pro-Hamas,” or an “activist.”
- Every complaint demanded the same outcome: immediate removal.
Letters accused Lattouf of “the promulgation of antizionist (aka antisemitic) rhetoric” and of using the ABC to “spread and promulgate hatred and social dissension.”
“Anything short of terminating her position would not be sufficient.”
The ABC’s Acting Editorial Director, Simon Melkman—the organisation’s own expert on editorial standards—reviewed every complaint and found no breach of any policy. Not one. He described the claims as “seriously misguided.” He identified them as a “campaign” by “motivated complainants.” He advised three times that there was no justification for removing Lattouf from air.
The ABC fired her anyway. The content she had shared on social media—the stated reason for her termination—was a Human Rights Watch report. The ABC was simultaneously broadcasting the same report as news.
The volume escalated precisely. Day 1: 32 complaints. Day 2: 15+ more, plus 29 forwarded by the ABC Chair’s executive assistant. Day 3: continuing floods. ABC Chair Ita Buttrose forwarded complaints directly to the operational decision-maker in five separate emails with escalating subject lines: “More complaints Antoinette 702,” “The complaints keep coming Antoinette 702,” “I think we will keep getting these complaints until Antoinette leaves.”
The decision-maker held the line on Tuesday. By Wednesday—after the Chair’s five forwarding emails, the Managing Director’s threat of misconduct proceedings against the man who had hired Lattouf, and a tip that The Australian was preparing a story—he broke. His text to the Managing Director at 1:17 pm: “Aus are going to run a yarn. I’m going to action this now and try and beat the story.”
From that text to Lattouf being told to leave the building: approximately one hour. No written notice of the allegation, no right to a union representative, no investigation process, no opportunity to respond. The Enterprise Agreement required all of these. None were followed.
After the removal, Buttrose emailed a member of the Lawyers for Israel group: “You are probably unaware that Ms Lattouf no longer works at the ABC.” She forwarded a congratulatory email with the note: “It’s nice to get congratulatory emails.”
That was the feedback loop. Campaign. Pressure. Capitulation. Confirmation from the Chair of the Board.
4. The Reaction
A family lawyer and member of the Lawyers for Israel group posted her response after Lattouf retained employment lawyer Josh Bornstein to bring her claim.
The family lawyer posted her assessment of Bornstein—a Jewish lawyer representing a client against the ABC—to the group:
“Traiter!” [sic]
A lawyer. Calling another lawyer a traitor for representing a client.
5. Sue Chrysanthou SC — The Shield
Sue Chrysanthou is a defamation barrister at 153 Phillip Barristers, Sydney. Widely described as Australia’s pre-eminent defamation silk. Geoffrey Rush, Sarah Hanson-Young, Lisa Wilkinson, Moira Deeming—her client list spans the political spectrum.
In the Lattouf proceedings, Chrysanthou represented nine members of the Lawyers for Israel group who had complained to the ABC about Lattouf. On 3 February 2025—the first day of trial—she obtained a 10-year suppression order over their identities.
Then she brought contempt proceedings against Nine Entertainment for articles published in January 2024 by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and Pedestrian TV that had named four people associated with the campaign, two of whom were now protected by the suppression order. The articles predated the trial.
Justice Rangiah declined to direct prosecution. Nine had an arguable defence—the names were sourced independently of the court proceedings. Chrysanthou’s clients were ordered to pay half of Nine’s costs.
Nine lawyers who organised a campaign that the Federal Court found unlawful are now protected by a 10-year court order preventing anyone from knowing who they are. They tried to hold the journalists who reported their conduct in contempt. They lost that too.
6. The Verdict
In Lattouf v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2025] FCA 669, Justice Rangiah found the ABC unlawfully terminated Lattouf’s employment in contravention of sections 772(1) and 50 of the Fair Work Act 2009. Her political opinions—her views on the Israeli military campaign in Gaza—were a substantial and operative reason for her dismissal.
The Court found the complaints had thrown ABC management into “a state of panic” caused by “an orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air.”
“The ABC’s senior managers knew there was an organised political campaign to have Ms Lattouf removed from the ABC… The ABC’s response was to surrender to the lobbyists’ political campaign by sacrificing Ms Lattouf. It did so for spurious reasons and without giving Ms Lattouf the opportunity to defend herself.”
“The ABC let down the Australian public badly when it abjectly surrendered the rights of its employee Ms Lattouf to appease a lobby group.”
$150,000 in penalties. $70,000 in compensation.
Sources
Court Judgments
- Lattouf v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2025] FCA 669 (Liability)
- Lattouf v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2025] FCA 1174 (Penalty)
- Lattouf v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2025] FCA 812 (Contempt / Suppression Order)
- Wertheim & Goot v Haddad [2025] FCA 720
- Clyne v NSW Bar Association (1960) 104 CLR 186
Affidavit Evidence
- Affidavit of David Newton Anderson, filed 14 October 2024
- Affidavit of Ita Clare Buttrose, filed 14 October 2024
- Affidavit of Christopher Oliver-Taylor, filed 11 October 2024
- Affidavit of Simon Melkman, filed 14 October 2024
- Affidavit of Elizabeth Green, filed 14 October 2024
- Affidavit of Benjamin Latimer, filed 14 October 2024
- Affidavit of Stephen Ahern, filed 14 October 2024
- Affidavit of Antoinette Lattouf, filed 4 February 2025
Pleadings and Submissions
- Further Consolidated Amended Statement of Claim, filed 24 October 2024
- Agreed Statement of Facts, filed 20 December 2024
- Applicant’s Closing Submissions, filed 23 February 2025
- Respondent’s Closing Submissions, filed 26 February 2025
Media Reporting
- Michael Bachelard and Calum Jaspan, “Revealed: the secret WhatsApp messages of pro-Israel lobby group ‘Lawyers for Israel’,” The Sydney Morning Herald / The Age, 16 January 2024
- Middle East Eye, “ABC was lobbied by two WhatsApp groups to fire journalist”
- Crikey, “Pro-Israel lobbyist suppression order: ten years”
- The Conversation, “Doxing or in the public interest? Free speech, cancelling, and the ethics of the Jewish creatives WhatsApp group leak”
- B&T, “WhatsApp messages show pro-Israeli lobbyists campaigned to oust Antoinette Lattouf from the ABC”