Nine female lawyers from the “Lawyers for Israel” WhatsApp group have lost their application for the judge to order the registrar of the Federal Court of Australia to institute contempt proceedings against 2 companies and 6 employees from Nine Entertainment.

Their application was frivolous and vexatious, and what they were trying to do was weaponize contempt laws to silence Nine Entertainment and then go after other media and social media users, which could have included me and this website. But more on that in a minute.

The background

On the 20th of December 2023 journalist Antoinette Lattouf was sacked by the ABC after the “Lawyers for Israel” WhatsApp group, with 156 members, ran an email campaign with the support of News Corp to pressure the ABC management to sack Lattouf.

In January 2024 the SMH published leaked messages from the “Lawyers for Israel” WhatsApp messaging group which exposed their organised email campaign to ABC management, including then ABC Chair Ita Buttrose, to have Antoinette Lattouf sacked.

Antoinette Lattouf instituted unlawful termination proceedings with the hearing held in February 2025. (On the 25th of June 2025 the court found that Ms Lattouf’s allegations had been proven and granted consequential relief: see Lattouf v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (No 2) [2025] FCA 669.)

At the start of the hearing 9 female lawyers from the “Lawyers for Israel” WhatsApp group applied for and were granted suppression orders because their email complaints to the ABC, with their names and contact details, were part of the evidence filed in the matter and their lawyer said they would face harassment if their details were not suppressed.

The proposed suppression order was not opposed by Antoinette Lattouf and the ABC.

The 9 female lawyers claim the 2 companies and 6 employees from Nine Entertainment breached the court orders and they filed an application seeking to have the judge order the registrar of the court to institute contempt proceedings. 

In the judgement on Friday (18/7/25) Justice Rangiah said at paragraphs 4 to 9 and 26, 29, 32, 45, 60 and 42: (Click here to read the full judgment)

4. On 3 February 2025, the first day of the hearing, I made a suppression and non-publication order (the Order) in the following terms:

Pursuant to s 37AF of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth) (the Act) and on the ground that it is necessary to protect the safety of persons, for a period of 10 years, the names, identities, contact details and addresses of persons who made complaints to the respondent about its employment or engagement of the applicant in December 2023, are not to be published or otherwise disclosed, and may only be accessed from the Court file by the Court, Court staff, a party to these proceedings and their legal representatives.

5. In my reasons, I noted that the hearing was being live-streamed and that an online file had been established to which affidavits read in open court, exhibits and other documents would be uploaded and be accessible to members of the public. This had the consequence of bypassing the process under r 2.32(4) of the Rules, which requires that the Court’s leave be sought to access affidavits that have been filed. I was satisfied that the Order was necessary to protect the safety of the Intervening Parties because of a substantial risk they would face, at least, vilification and harassment if their identities and contact details were available to the public: see Lattouf v Australian Broadcasting Corporation [2025] FCA 62.

6. The interlocutory application is concerned with the following news articles:

• An article first published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald (The SMH) on 16 January 2024.
• A second article first published in The Age and The SMH on 16 January 2024.
• An article first published by Pedestrian TV on 16 January 2024.
• An article first published in The SMH on 17 January 2024.

7. It may be observed that each of the articles was first published about a year before the Order was made on 3 February 2025. The articles remained available online even after the Order was made. The Intervening Parties allege that the Order required the publishers to take down the articles and that the Alleged Contemnors contravened the Order by failing to do so.

8. Although the Intervening Parties submit that another article published in The SMH on 3 February 2025 also breached the Order by referring to the January 2024 Articles, they do not allege any contempt in respect of that publication because the article was amended to remove that reference on the same day.

9. The Alleged Contemnors are:

• The Age Company Pty Ltd (publisher of The Age);
• Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd (publisher of The SMH);
• Bevan Shields (editor of The SMH);
• Patrick Elligett (editor of The Age);
• Larina Alick (in-house lawyer);
• Sam White (in-house lawyer);
• Calum Jaspan (journalist who co-wrote the newspaper articles); and
• Michael Bachelard (journalist who co-wrote the newspaper articles).

26. It is apparent that the Court would not order the Registrar to start a proceeding for contempt that has no reasonable prospect of succeeding. It can be accepted, as a general proposition, that the more obvious or blatant the alleged contempt appears to be, the more likely it is that the Registrar would be ordered to commence a proceeding for contempt. This proposition takes into account both the undesirability of the Registrar expending public funds in prosecuting a case of doubtful merit and the possibility of costs being ordered against the Registrar.

29. In R v Herald & Weekly Times Pty Ltd (Ruling No 2) [2020] VSC 800 (Herald & Weekly Times), Dixon J, citing R v Hinch [2013] VSC 520, held at [81] that to establish contempt of court on the basis of publication of a report in breach of a suppression order, the applicant must prove beyond reasonable doubt that:

(a) the respondent published the article (or caused it to be published);

(b) the publication of the article frustrated the effect of the suppression order because it contained material that was contrary to or that infringed the terms of the order; and

(c) when the article was published, the alleged contemnor’s knowledge of the terms and effect of the order was such that a reasonable person with that knowledge would have understood that the continued publication of the article would have the tendency to frustrate the efficacy of the order.

32. The articles published by The Age and The SMH on 16 January 2024 disclosed the name of a WhatsApp group said to have organised a letter-writing campaign demanding that Ms Lattouf be sacked. The articles named four persons as being associated with the campaign. Two of them are Intervening Parties. The articles directly named one of those two persons as having made a complaint to the ABC in December 2023 about Ms Lattouf’s employment. It is reasonably arguable that by indicating other named persons encouraged members of the group to write to the ABC, the articles suggested that the named persons had already written to the ABC. The article of 17 January 2024 contained a link to The SMH articles published on 16 January 2024.

45. I am satisfied that all of the Alleged Contemnors have established a reasonably arguable basis for defending the allegations of contempt. They have demonstrated a reasonably arguable case that the Order only protected the nine Intervening Parties and only protected information derived from material on the Court file or from the proceedings. Further, they have a reasonably arguable case, that in the absence of being notified of the identities of the relevant nine Intervening Parties, they could not know what information they were prohibited from disclosing.

60. In these circumstances, the appropriate order is that the Intervening Parties pay half the Alleged Contemnors’ costs as between party and party. (Click here to read the full judgment)

The judge also said at paragraph 42:

42. I am satisfied that the Intervening Parties have established a reasonably arguable case of contempt against The Age Company Pty Ltd, Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd, Mr Shields, Mr Elligett, Mr Blanchard and Mr Jaspan.

That is not true. The arguable case of the “Intervening Parties” (9 female lawyers) was frivolous and vexatious at best but the judge probably thought if he said that it would pour fuel on the fire so he was diplomatic when he said “the Intervening Parties have established a reasonably arguable case.”.

The judge never made a finding about whether the suppression orders had been breached and if he did, he would have to find they weren’t breached because no court orders were issued to take down previous articles naming the applicants and no one knew who the applicants were.

The dodgy strategy of the 9 female lawyers from the Lawyers for Israel group 

On the 3rd of February 2025, the same day the suppression orders were issued, the SMH published an article which referenced previous SMH articles from 12 months earlier which the judge said named 2 of the 9 women applicants.

Rebekah Giles, the lawyer for the nine women, wrote to journalist Calum Jaspan complaining the article published on the 3rd of February 2025 was in breach of the court orders as she claimed the court orders covered all articles that named anyone who had made a complaint to the ABC about Antoinette Lattouf.

That was a huge lie by Rebekah Giles as nowhere in the court orders, see paragraph 4 above, does it say that.

But Calum Jaspan edited his “3rd of February 2025” article to take out the references to earlier articles naming the women. Why Calum Jaspan edited his “3rd of February 2025” article I don’t know but it seems he fell for Rebekah Giles’ lie.

After being given an inch, Rebekah Giles decided to take a mile, and started an email campaign to Nine’s internal lawyers to have the articles from January 2024 taken down or amended to delete the names of the 9 female lawyers from the “Lawyers for Israel” group.

The only way the court orders could be breached is if someone had access to the court file and also had a full copy of the court orders with the names of the 9 suppressed women. Nine Entertainment and their staff had neither. 

Nine Entertainment and their internal lawyers ignored Rebekah Giles email campaign for weeks but after a while decided to edit the articles which complied with Rebekah Giles demands even though Nine had no legal obligation to do so.

Why the contempt proceedings given Nine Entertainment complied with the demands 9 female lawyers from the Lawyers for Israel group?

Given Nine Entertainment complied with the demands of the 9 female lawyers months ago, even though they were not in breach of the court orders, why did the 9 female lawyers continue with their contempt application against Nine Entertainment’s companies and staff?

I believe that if the 9 female lawyers had won on Friday (18/7/25), and the judge ordered the Registrar of the Federal Court of Australia to institute contempt proceedings against 2 companies and 6 employees from Nine Entertainment, then Rebekah Giles would have started an email campaign to other media and social media users demanding they take down the names of the 9 female lawyers or face contempt proceedings like Nine Entertainment.

The bottom line is the 9 female lawyers were trying to weaponize contempt proceedings to intimidate the media. They would have likely been thinking there was no need to wait for a judgement, as they knew they would lose, against Nine Entertainment in the contempt matter, as just having the contempt matter afoot would be enough to intimidate other media and social media users.

Criminal offences by the Lawyers for Israel group

It is arguable that the 9 female lawyers from the Lawyers for Israel group, and others from the Lawyers for Israel group, are guilty of numerous criminal offences for their pursuit and harassment of Antoinette Lattouf as well as breaching defamation law for the public lies they told about Lattouf online.

Such crimes would include, but are not limited to, “using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offence” which is a criminal offence under Section 474.17 of the Criminal Code Act 1995. I also covered the fact that they are in breach Australia’s foreign influence laws in the below video I published on the 14th of July 2025:

(Click here to watch the above video on the Kangaroo Court of Australia YouTube channel)

Closing arguments

I also have articles and social media posts from 12 months ago that name some of the Lawyers from Israel WhatsApp group that complained to the ABC, which I quoted from the SMH articles, but I have not taken the articles and social media posts down because I know I am not in breach of the court orders.

When lawyers believe suppression orders and/or non-publication orders have been breached, or are concerned they might be breached, they will send you a full copy of the orders and demand you comply with the orders.

That happened to me in 2023 when there were suppression orders stopping people naming former MKR star Claudean Bernadette Uamaki-Mu who is facing criminal charges. (Click here to see the court orders they sent me)

Rebekah Giles, the lawyer for the 9 female lawyers, has failed to send the full copy of the court orders to anyone that I know of, including Nine Entertainment. Why? Because Rebekah Giles and her clients, the 9 female lawyers, know that Nine Entertainment and their staff were not in breach of the court orders and that is more evidence of their big lie.

The 9 female lawyers from the Lawyers for Israel group would be well advised to leave it there and move on. But they could appeal Justice Rangiah’s judgment or could institute contempt proceedings themselves which would be very costly when they lose and that is why they wanted the court to run and pay for the contempt case.

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