The Project: Channel 10 releases statement backing Peter van Onselen

Channel 10 has issued a statement supporting its embattled political editor Peter van Onselen following a report he will be off The Project for ‘the foreseeable future’.

Network sources allegedly told The Herald Sun van Onselen could be away from the desk ‘all year’ after finding himself at the centre of a media storm in recent weeks.

The journalist, 46, had been filling in for hosts Waleed Aly and Hamish Macdonald over the summer, but according to insiders will focus on other duties in 2022.

A Channel 10 spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia this isn’t the case, however, and that van Onselen ‘remains a contributor’ to The Project and will make appearances ‘as required’.

‘Peter van Onselen was co-hosting The Project over the summer, as several of the hosts were away,’ the representative said on Monday.

‘Peter remains a contributor to the program in his role as the network’s political editor and will appear on the show as required.’

The Herald Sun also reported that while there was initially a positive response from 10 executives to van Onselen’s on-air clash with Carrie Bickmore on January 25, those same bosses soon became ‘apprehensive’ about the consequences of such overt hostility between the hosts.

Bickmore and guest journalist Amy Remeikis had torn shreds off van Onselen for his column in The Australian criticising former Australian of the Year Grace Tame for her ‘immature’ behaviour around Scott Morrison at The Lodge.

Tame, a left-wing activist and advocate for survivors of sexual assault, had scowled and refused to look the PM in the eye while meeting him and wife Jenny at a morning tea for this year’s Australian of the Year finalists.

Van Onselen said Tame should have just stayed home if she couldn’t be polite, but Bickmore and Remeikis felt this was not an acceptable opinion and questioned why he’d written the piece.

Since then, van Onselen has made headlines for breaking the story about Gladys Berejiklian’s leaked texts to a Liberal minister about the Prime Minister, in which the former NSW Premier called Mr Morrison a ‘horrible, horrible person’.

It was a rare scoop for Channel 10, which isn’t known for setting the news agenda.

He has also been named in a lawsuit by former 10 press gallery journalist Tegan George in her action against the network alleging she was subjected to a toxic culture of bullying during her time under van Onselen at the Canberra bureau.

He is one of several senior employees named in the lawsuit which claims the station failed to provide a safe working environment.

Ms George joined the network in 2011 and started the new role in 2019 but has been on leave since June 2021 allegedly suffering ‘personal injury’ brought on by ‘stress to the point of incapacity’, the lawsuit alleged.

Channel 10 and van Onselen have denied the allegation but are yet to file a defence.