Antoinette Lattouf has taken a swipe at the ABC after the broadcaster called for Aussies to come forward if their boss had controlled their political expression.
The national broadcaster shared a message to its Instagram story on Saturday asking ns to come forward confidentially with their experiences.
‘Has your boss tried to control your political expression – either at work or out-of-hours,’ the ABC wrote.
‘We’d love to (confidentially) hear from you for a story we’re working on’.
Lattouf shared a screenshot of the story with the caption: ‘Ummm… **coughs nervously**’.
It comes after Lattouf was dumped by the broadcaster over her posts on the war in Gaza just three days into her week-long stint as a fill-in host on Radio Sydney’s morning show.
The 40-year-old was axed on December 20 within minutes of her Wednesday show ending after she reposted a Human Rights Watch video about starvation being used as a tool of war in Gaza.
The former fill-in radio host launched legal action against the ABC at the Fair Work Commission claiming the decision was political, based on her stance on Palestine and her Lebanese heritage.
Lattouf’s legal team has argued the ABC breached its disciplinary policies in its enterprise agreement by sacking the journalist.
The ABC claimed she breached the organisation’s social media policy around impartiality and she was not actually sacked because she was paid for the full week.
The Fair Work Commission ruled in June that Lattouf was indeed sacked by the national broadcaster, with the matter to be taken up in the federal court next year.
The ABC has since rejected Lattouf’s settlement request, which includes a public apology, reinstatement as a fill-in radio presenter and $85,000.
The national broadcaster has defended itself against the unfair dismissal claim and is understood to have put forward an undisclosed counter-offer.
In August, the ABC’s national union house committee said staff at the broadcaster were disappointed management had rejected Lattouf’s settlement offer.
The union members claimed the offer was ‘modest’ and called on chair Kim Williams and the board to step in if ABC management continue with the case.
‘Arguing Ms Lattouf was not sacked, and then rejecting a modest early settlement offer does not look to us like model litigant behaviour,’ the house committee told The Age.
The committee argued continuing the defence would run the ‘risk of compounding costs, which will reduce operational and staff budgets’.
Members urged the ABC to settle with the former radio fill-in ‘rather than continuing to rack up these costs and fight a staff member who did nothing wrong’, prior to the February 27 Federal Court hearing.
The ABC’s house committee also slammed management for not revealing its legal fees and for hiring big-shot US law firm Seyfarth Shaw to handle the dispute.
The ABC’s total legal expenses in the case against Lattouf are still unknown, despite managing director David Anderson taking questions on notice in May during Senate estimates.
It is understood the government is processing the question on notice in relation to ABC’s legal expenditures to date and will provide a response when available.