EXCLUSIVE
This is the $220 limo receipt that threatens to blow a hole in the key testimony ABC boss David Anderson has given concerning the decision to sack fill-in radio host Antoinette Lattouf.
Former ABC chair Ita Buttrose claims the document proves the outgoing managing director made key errors in the version of events he offered the Federal Court during the axed presenter's ongoing unlawful dismissal action.
Daily Mail Australia obtained the receipt after Ms Buttrose sent it to the ABC, warning it was evidence 'that completely refuted Mr Anderson's affidavit'.
In a seven-page explosive letter to the ABC's lawyers last week, Ms Buttrose urged the public broadcaster to contact Ms Lattouf's legal team 'as a matter of absolute urgency' there were 'inconsistencies' in Mr Anderson's version of events surrounding her termination.
The veteran media executive warned the ABC that, if they failed to do so, she would 'take the appropriate action'.
Ms Lattouf was sacked just three days into a week-long hosting role on the ABC's morning radio show in Sydney the week before Christmas in December 2023 after posting about the Israel-Gaza war on social media.
According to Mr Anderson's affidavit, he was scheduled to see Ms Buttrose on the day Ms Lattouf was terminated for a pre-arranged 'Christmas lunch'.
This is the $220 limo car service receipt that threatens to blow a hole in the key testimony ABC boss David Anderson has given concerning the decision to sack fill-in radio host Antoinette Lattouf
Ms Buttrose leaves the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney after giving evidence in Antoinette's unlawful dismissal action against the ABC this month
He said he broached the topic of Ms Lattouf's ongoing employment at the taxpayer-funded broadcaster with the ABC chair after meeting up with her 'outside her office' before sharing a ride to lunch in the city.
At the time they caught up, Ms Lattouf was yet to be sacked, and Mr Anderson indicated they he had discussed the fact she would be seeing out her week of shifts on-air against Ms Buttrose's wishes.
'At approximately 12.30pm on Wednesday, 20 December 2023...we met at the ABC Ultimo office [in inner-city Sydney] and travelled to lunch together in the same car. No one else joined us,' he said in the affidavit.
'Before we left the ABC Ultimo office, when I met Ms Buttose outside her office on Level 14 to travel to lunch together, we had a conversation to the following effect:
'Ms Buttrose: David, let's get this out of the way. I read your email and we are just going to have to agree to disagree on the position you've taken in relation to Anoinette Lattouf.
'Me: Yes, that's the best way forward. I know you are unhappy with it, but that is what we are going for the rest of the week.'
However, Ms Buttrose said she was never in at the ABC's Ultimo headquarters that day - and that the limo receipt proved she instead travelled from her home in nearby Redfern to collect Mr Anderson out the front of the building before moving on to lunch at Luke's Kitchen on Pitt St.
'Clearly, Mr Anderson was not having a conversation with me on Level 14 at Ultimo, when I wasn't even in the building,' Ms Buttrose wrote in her letter.
Antoinette Lattouf has taken legal action against the ABC after she was fired after just three days while filling in as the host of the public broadcaster's morning radio show in Sydney
'In the interests of transparency and our legal obligations to do so, the invoice from "Corporate Cars Australia" must be provided to Ms Lattouf.'
Ms Buttrose added that, given she had not been at the ABC's Ultimo offices that day, it followed that Mr Anderson's recollection about their alleged conversation was also in dispute.
'No such conversation ever took place; and this is corroborated with irrefutable evidence which the ABC now has,' she wrote.
She noted she had sent a copy of the receipt to the ABC's legal department after raising the issue of the inconsistencies in an urgent phone hook-up last Tuesday.
'That evidence being, an invoice from ‘Corporate Cars Australia' that showed that at 12.10pm on 20 December 2023, a car picked me up from my home address in Redfern; and at 12.30pm, that car pulled up to the front of the ABC offices at Ultimo,' she wrote.
Ms Buttrose also disputed Mr Anderson's recollection of when he learned the decision to sack Ms Lattouf had been made by then ABC content chief Chris Oliver-Taylor.
According to his affidavit, the ABC boss said that after their lunch wrapped up at about 2pm he 'assisted Ms Buttrose to her hire car which was taking her home and I got a taxi back to the ABC office'.
It was then that he learned Ms Lattouf had been fired, he said.
Ms Buttrose claims ABC boss David Anderson made a number of errors while recollecting the events surrounding Ms Lattouf's sacking
'During my taxi ride back to the office, I called Mr Oliver-Taylor, and (to the best of my recollection) we had a conversation to the following effect:
'Me: What happed?
'Mr Oliver-Taylor: She posted on social media against instructions. There were two posts, one on Instagram and one on X. It undermines her ability to be impartial at work. It increases the risk for the ABC, and we don't trust her to get back on air for the final two days.'
However, Ms Buttrose said this could not have happened either.
'He was, in fact, in a hire car with me,' Buttrose wrote in her letter.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest that Mr Anderson's evidence in the federal court case was anything but his honest recollection of events only that Ms Buttrose has contacted the ABC's lawyers to dispute them.
It comes after Ms Buttrose, Mr Anderson and Mr Oliver-Taylor all gave evidence before Federal Court in Sydney earlier this month.
It is unclear what action the ABC had taken following Ms Buttrose's letter.
Ms Buttrose could not be reached for comment while the ABC has said it was inappropriate for the broadcaster to discuss the matter while it was before the court.
Final submissions in the unlawful termination case are scheduled to be heard on Thursday and Friday before justice Darryl Rangiah retires to consider his verdict.
Sydney