Antoinette Lattouf v ABC LIVE updates: Broadcaster withdraws race argument; Steve Ahern, Ita Buttrose set to appear as unlawful termination case continues

Buttrose says it was very unusual for a matter relating to a casual employee on a five-day contract to be brought to the chair, but that it isn’t the chair’s job to instruct someone to be removed from the air, she says.

Asked if it concerned Buttrose that Lattouf is Lebanese, she said it did not, and that she did not know she was Lebanese at the time. She learned this later.

“People’s colour doesn’t really worry me at all,” says Buttrose.

“Christmas was looming. We were all going away. We needed to resolve the issue. We needed to at least acknowledge the complaints, and an investigation had to begin,” Buttrose adds, when asked why she placed the Lattouf complaints on the agenda of a meeting between her and David Anderson on December 19, 2023.