Broadcaster’s chief people officer Deena Amorelli tells Senate estimates ABC will ‘apologise’ for argument

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The ABC’s earlier legal argument that Antoinette Lattouf had to prove the existence of a Lebanese race should “never have been made”, the broadcaster has conceded at a parliamentary committee which heard the case cost $1.1m in external lawyers.

The ABC’s defence of Lattouf’s unlawful termination case originally argued she must prove the existence of a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race, a tactic which angered ABC staff and Australian Middle Eastern and multicultural groups.

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