Crikey’s correspondent-at-large Guy Rundle has been sacked after he sent a text to ABC Radio saying sexual assault complaints have gone up because “every grope is now a sexual assault”.
Guardian Australia understands the ABC told the publisher of Crikey, Private Media, that the message was one of dozens of “inflammatory” texts sent by the writer on a variety of topics in recent months to the RN Breakfast show, hosted by Patricia Karvelas. The sexual assault text is the first one Karvelas has read out on air along with his name.
Will Hayward, the chief executive of Private Media, said the comment was appalling and Crikey would no longer be publishing Rundle’s work.
“We were appalled to hear the comment made by Guy Rundle about sexual assault on Radio National yesterday morning,” Hayward told Guardian Australia on Friday night. “Rundle is a writer with significant talents and a body of insightful and challenging work, but we condemn those kinds of comments and our working relationship has become untenable. Therefore, we will no longer be publishing his work.”
Rundle texted RN Breakfast on Thursday in response to a discussion about the dramatic increase over the past decade of sexual assault offences in Queensland. Guardian Australia understands the ABC confirmed the phone number belonged to the columnist.
Karvelas had earlier interviewed lawyer Angela Lynch, the Queensland Sexual Assault Network executive officer, because the increase has become an issue in the Queensland election.
“Guy Rundle has written in to say, ‘soft interview on the head of a failed strategy, and it’s because every grope is now a sexual assault and people don’t believe policy people’,” Karvelas told her listeners. “Well, that’s quite staggering.”
Rundle was one of the biggest drivers of subscriptions for the independent news website, but his writing has not been without controversy.
Last year Rundle was roundly condemned for a piece he wrote about the commonwealth compensation received by Brittany Higgins who was allegedly sexually assaulted in Parliament House in 2019.
In his opinion piece headlined “The Brittany Higgins case: we’re not required to leave our brains at the security entrance”, Rundle argued that because Higgins received a compensation payment from the commonwealth, “we have a right to hear the full story”.
Higgins, he wrote, had “about as much motive as anyone has ever had to make a false sex crime claim,” saying that being found “naked and asleep on your boss’s office sofa is a career killer, obviously”.
Crikey apologised to Higgins and unpublished Rundle’s offensive article, following it up with a lengthy second apology.
Crikey’s editor-in-chief, Sophie Black, and editor, Gina Rushton, penned an almost 500-word editorial.
In 2016, Crikey was in the spotlight for publishing obscene comments by Rundle about the relationship between the Labor frontbencher David Feeney and his wife, lawyer Liberty Sanger.
Rundle called Feeney “fat” and questioned why Sanger would be attracted to him. He also implied the then Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, was amused by his offensive comments about the couple’s sex life.
“‘David and Liberty – I mean, what can that be? What the hell can that be? It’s gotta be tongue, right? It’s always tongue in these cases. I bet that fat man has a tongue like a big wet flesh carpet. I bet it’s like Oscars night …’ The spruikers are wavering. Di Natale hears it, is trying not to laugh.”
Rundle has been approached for comment.
