Can you be dismissed for your political opinions? The answer is not as simple as you may think
In December 2023, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) employed journalist Antoinette Lattouf to host Sydney Mornings radio program for a five-day period. Soon after presenting her first program, the ABC received complaints from members of the public alleging that Lattouf held anti-Semitic views, lacked impartiality, and was unsuitable to present any program for the ABC. The complaints were part of a campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Lattouf taken off air.
Lattouf’s manager advised her that it would be best not to post anything “controversial” about the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. On the third day of her contract, ABC managers discovered she had reposted a Human Rights Watch video about the war on her personal Instagram account, adding the words “HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war.” Although that same report had already been the subject of a story on ABC News, Lattouf’s post sent senior managers of the ABC into what the Federal Court termed “a state of panic.” Less than an hour later, Lattouf was told that she had breached the ABC’s policies, not to return for her two remaining shifts, and to leave the premises immediately. The executives did not identify which policies she had allegedly breached or give her an opportunity to defend herself against the allegations.
Last month, the Australian Federal Court found that Lattouf’s employment was...
Claims that Brigitte Macron is a transgender woman first emerged online in 2021 and have since gone viral. “Two billion people have been exposed to this story in French and 2.5 billion in English,...