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Chapter 1: What led Antoinette Lattouf to become a media controversy?
A listener production.
Hey, it's Sasha Barber-Gatt. Welcome to The Weekend Briefing, where we chat with the humans behind the headlines. If you are a long-time listener of The Briefing, whether it be weekend or weekday, you'll be all too familiar with today's guests. Once a host who sat... that in this very chair, Antoinette Latouffe went from journo and author to the face of a very public legal battle with the ABC.
After she was terminated, wrongfully, it was later determined by Fair Work, over a social media post. Now she's written a book called Women Who Win, which became her port in the storm that was more than a year of threats, lost work opportunities and staring down fear. We laugh, we cry and we explore what it takes to win and lose in today's chat.
A little later in the show is The Weekend List with Helen Smith, where we are going to recommend some things to watch, see, do, eat or listen to.
Chapter 2: How did the legal battle with the ABC impact Antoinette's career?
But first, it's the woman herself, Antoinette Latouf. Well, I don't know if we ever thought we'd say this a couple of years ago, but Antoinette Latouf, welcome to The Weekend Briefing. Oh my gosh, that is such a strange thing to hear, to be all the way on the other side of the desk. I was going to say, we kind of are interchangeable.
When you were working with us here at The Briefing, you'd know we were kind of, we just sit wherever, right? It's not like an other side of the desk, but we'll say you're on the other side of the desk for today. Sure. How are you?
Because it's been almost a year since the verdict was handed down in your case against the ABC and, you know, us working with you here at the briefing knew what a toll that took on you and you've spoken about it publicly. Yeah. How are you going?
Oh, gosh, a lot better than I was. But I realise... I do have setbacks and I realise that things, you know, and I hate that word triggered because everyone's like, oh, I'm so triggered and, you know, an elevator music will trigger somebody or whatever. I feel like it's so overused it can sometimes render it useless, the word useless.
But no, there are things that I find difficult to navigate and that I'm still mourning and I'm still processing. It was all so public and it was all so unfair and the attacks were so brutal. Having said that, I'm obviously doing a lot better. I'm still creating and building my independent media company. I've obviously written a book.
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Chapter 3: What themes does Antoinette explore in her book 'Women Who Win'?
I've kept myself busy and connecting with audiences. But there is part of me that's a little bit terrified about this... coming out into the world, my book coming out into the world and also opening myself up to what will probably be another round of attacks and scrutiny by certain players.
I'm sorry to hear that because Women Who Win is this great look at powerful and impactful women in Australia. You chose the title Women Who Win before you had found out that you won in this case against the ABC. Yeah. What might have changed had you not won?
Yeah, that's a really great question. I had determined that I won at a certain point well before any judge had. And I think...
After exploring various wins through various women's experiences and also analysing sometimes the cost of a win, and sometimes there were others who had objective wins, like a whole array of gold medals, that it was most important for a woman to define her win in her own time. I realised that the whole notion of celebrating women is so fraught because as I went through the archives...
of Australian history and newspaper archives and I interviewed contemporary women, some of the most significant, incredible women were cast aside, imprisoned, driven out of the country. And then years later had a bench named after them or a building or whatever and are celebrated as these winners and have a scholarship in their name. And so I was like, well...
I doubt they felt like they were being treated as winners in their time. And then there were other winners who had objective wins, but that wasn't necessarily the highlight of their lives. Sometimes the wins came at too great a cost. And so I just thought the notion of winning is quite fraught.
And I decided the fact that I defended myself against the odds, that I was in this David versus Goliath enormous lopsided battle,
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Chapter 4: What challenges do women face when challenging the status quo?
and that I was unwavering in my ethics and my beliefs and backing myself because I knew what message that sends to my daughters, what message that sends to other women. I was like, that's the win. The win is having the gumption to do it despite how scared you are. And so, yeah, and so how would it have been different in the book?
I think I obviously, you know, it would have reached a different climax at one point, but I would have probably spent more time explaining the fraught notion of winning and... why sometimes the legal system isn't necessarily a justice system. It's a legal system. You never know which way the court outcome is going to go. But yeah, look, I'm not going to lie.
It would have been a bit harder to spruik. It would have been a bit harder to... Women who win, the caveat.
Moral victory. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Do you, you know, do you feel like you're one of the women who will be celebrated now? Or do you think your celebrations or, you know, the celebrations for you will come later?
quite fortunate in some regard in that I have felt an enormous wave of public support. And I write about that in the book, that I was really buoyed by how many people helped out in a myriad of ways, whether they contributed to my GoFundMe account. There was this one dentist who reached out on Instagram. He's like, I don't know what to do.
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Chapter 5: How does Antoinette define a 'win' in her personal and professional life?
I can't believe what you're going through. Can I give you a scale and clean? I was like, hell yes, you can.
Yeah.
Teeth are important, man. And so, and then there were some, some of the women I profile in this book reached out to me. Some I found, some found me because they'd been through various difficult things and wanted to lend support. In many ways, I received a lot of support. And, you know, I've had things like
Lots of university students telling me, we study you at university, be they barristers or journalism students or whatever. It's because the case had set legal precedent. I mean, I don't know if it's being celebrated because it's a legal precedent. It's pretty, I don't know, it's a bit awkward.
But there have been things like, you know, two people painted me for an Archibald, which is a rare, weird thing. I mean, I look gross in both of them.
I know you didn't like the first one because we talked about it at the time. You were still with us here at the briefing.
The second one I don't love either. He aged me about 20 years and I wrote back and I told him, I was like, my mum loves the painting you did of her, Alice. Future me likes it.
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Chapter 6: What support did Antoinette receive during her public struggles?
And so there's certainly been public recognition, but there's still institutional smearing. There can be two quite different things, an institutional blacklisting. And so while people stalk me on the street and be very kind and generous and supportive, which means so much to me, I certainly haven't sort of reaped the rewards in any way. in any sense of power. Does that make sense?
That delineation make sense?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've kind of had to find the celebrations in different areas. It's not in big institutions going, oh, well, we're going to name this scholarship after Antoinette.
No, no, no.
You've gone out on your own. You started an independent media company with Jan Fran. Exactly. You were the victim of the lobby groups and they wanted to take you down because of your stance on the war in Gaza and what was happening.
Exactly.
Is that still happening now? Are these groups still existing and trying to take you down?
Yes. And I only found out, so Jan, Fran and I did a stage tour of four cities. And that was at the beginning of the year.
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Chapter 7: How does Antoinette balance motherhood with her career challenges?
And they went really well. We sold out. I was at Melbourne and Canberra. Anyway, it was a great success. And so we're super, super happy. It was wonderful to meet our audience and to connect and to perform. It was like a variety show. It wasn't a live podcast.
Anyway, it wasn't until after when we had a debrief with the event touring company because we're talking about the next one because it was a success and he was like, oh, I should probably tell you, right until the 11th hour, pro-Israel lobbyists were trying to have your tour cancelled. Wow. And I was like, what? Why didn't you tell us? And he's like, I had it under control.
He's like, when I wouldn't budge, they went to the venues. And then apparently after that, because the venues wouldn't budge, they went to the arts minister. And so there's absolutely still attempts to intimidate or silence or stifle anybody who objects to human rights atrocities and war crimes in Gaza, which have now extended to Lebanon.
Yeah.
When did you decide to write this book? Where were you at in the saga?
Yeah, so I was in a terrible, terrible mental state.
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Chapter 8: What is Antoinette's vision for the future of women's rights in Australia?
I was having a lot of panic attacks and insomnia and, you know, using alcohol to numb myself and relying on sleeping tablets and paranoid to be in public. I was in quite a bad way. But I guess this kind of super productive, pragmatic Antoinette kicked in because I feel comforted by knowledge and by information. Everything was out of my control.
I was like, this is going to ruin me financially, emotionally, professionally. And so I started to research other Australian women who did incredible things in a variety of ways, in science, in sport, in the environment, like all very, very different.
And I wanted to know how they overcome their deepest and darkest moments when they had a lot of self-doubt and also when they ā and many shared this. They were like, well, I didn't want this. I didn't want to be the first. I didn't want to set a precedent. I didn't want to be a trailblazer. I didn't want to have to kick open the door, you know, all their various challenges.
and how you navigate that. So it became a bit of a survival tool. So it was in between the Fair Work Commission, which was the first legal hurdle, and the federal court trial. So it would have been about December 2024, which was a year after I'd been sacked. but months before my actual trial.
So I started writing in between because I actually wanted to capture the fragility and the fear and the whole process because I knew that, I know myself that once I come out the other end, I'll just go, go, go, go. And I probably wouldn't be as honest about how I was really feeling.
What was it like juggling writing a book, battling against the ABC, working here on the briefing, on top of being a wife, a mum, and trying to hold on to yourself amidst it all? How did you cope going through all of that?
How did I cope?
Wow. Sometimes not very well. Sometimes not very well at all. I knew that part of
attacking me and wanting to take me down and part of the institutional cowardice that the ABC displayed was that it was so much more than an attack on me. It was an attack on our institutions and it sent a signal warning or it was a warning shot for other people. And so I knew that not only what happened to me And what eventuates with me matters and will have flow-on effects.
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