Awkward moment federal minister Ed Husic goes off script on ABC and slams the public broadcaster

A television interview with a Labor minister took an unexpected turn when he blasted the ABC on one of its own programs.

Federal Industry and Science minister Ed Husic was speaking to Patricia Karvelas about all things from Elon Musk and AI to Donald Trump and the Middle East on Tuesday, when he brought up Antoinette Lattouf’s unlawful termination case towards the end of the interview.

The journalist launched legal action against the ABC after her fill-in radio presenting stint was terminated after three days in December 2023.

Lattouff claimed she was told by the public broadcaster that she had breached its social media policy after sharing a post from Human Rights Watch about the war in Gaza, with the caption ‘HRW reporting starvation as a tool of war’.

The ABC previously argued Lattouf’s claim of racial discrimination had to fail because she had not proved that there was such a thing as ‘a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race’, but had proposed to file an amended opening submission.

Lawyers withdrew its race argument in the public broadcaster’s defence last Friday.

‘I’ll probably get in a lot of trouble saying this but I don’t know why, in the court case against Antoinette Lattouf, the ABC legal team has sought to make, for whatever reason, the difficulty of proving Antoinette Lattouf’s ethnicity,’ he began.

‘I think kids of migrants all over the place have often had to confront this themselves. 

‘I think it’s reasonable to expect better.’

Karvelas pointed out that the race argument had been withdrawn.

Mr Husic fired back: ‘Yeah, finally. I mean the question is, why raise it in the first place?’

He was then asked whether or not Lattouf should have been sacked.

As the son of Bosnian Muslim migrants who came to Australia in the late 1960s, Mr Husic said he felt for people of a Middle Eastern Lebanese and Arab backgrounds who had to hear the ABC’s race argument.

‘I’m the kid of migrants and I just think there were a lot of us that were surprised that that would enter,’ he said.

‘You need to appreciate that would have had an impact on kids from those backgrounds who’ve had to put up with a lot of that over the last two decades.

‘I would have expected better, like I said, I’ll probably get in grief for saying it, but to be honest, I think a lot of folks know watching, I speak what I mean.’

Karvelas told Mr Husic she had no problem with Labor MP’s spray at the broadcaster, saying he was free to state his opinion on her show. 

Lattouf alleges that she was fired because of her political opinion and race after the ABC bowed to pressure from pro-Israeli lobbyists who co-ordinated the campaign of complaints.

She is seeking compensation and penalties against the broadcaster.

The ABC is defending the case, saying she ignored a direction not to post anything on the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The broadcaster withdrew its race argument in its defence last week.

‘We are now instructed as follows, the ABC does not put in issue, that is, it does not dispute that the Lebanese, Middle Eastern or Arab races exist, or that Ms Lattouf is one or more of those races,’ the ABC’s lawyer Ian Neil told the Federal Court on Friday. 

The public broadcaster also made a formal apology after confidential information relating to those who complained about Lattouf’s views on the war in Gaza was accidentally disclosed to the public. 

Mr Husic’s scathing attack came as former ABC chair and high-profile media identity Ita Buttrose was grilled in the Federal Court over the role she played in Lattouf’s scandal-plagued sacking.

She told the court Lattouf should never have been hired by the ABC.

‘She was an activist,’ Ms Buttrose said 

‘In relation to the Gaza-Israel conflict, she was an activist that was quite apparent.’

However, Ms Buttrose insists she did not push for the ABC to sack her.

‘I didn’t want her replaced – I can’t replace anyone, the chair can’t do that,’ she said