Network 10’s political editor Peter van Onselen has been accused of humiliating his colleague Tegan George according to a claim against the network filed in federal court.
It had previously been reported that van Onselen would be named in the court documents of George’s case. Tegan George is 10’s federal political reporter.
As first reported by The Guardian, George has said that she has experienced “hurt, humiliation and distress” partly due to the way she was allegedly treated by Peter van Onselen.
According to the statement of claim – as seen by The Guardian – George is alleging that she was told by a manager that the Canberra bureau was “toxic” and that she should “deal with it”.
Another allegation said that Anthony Murdoch, executive director of 10, said “Peter is batshit crazy but we just have to get used to it”.
According to George’s claims, Murdoch allegedly told her that van Onselen would be expecting her to apologise after “hurting his feelings” by bringing up issues about van Onselen’s managment of the bureau.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that George also alleged she was “often” tasked with writing van Onselen’s news packages on top of her own work in 2019 and 2020.
When she complained about her workload, she said that Murdoch allegedly asked her at some point between November 2019 and February 2020: “What did you even do today? Painting your nails and drinking herbal tea?”
The allegations in the statement of claim also include that Ross Dagan, executive vice president of news operations and transformation, said about her workload “words to the effect that Mr van Onselen was the Network’s number one and said that they were all expected to build Mr van Onselen’s brand”, per The Guardian.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, George has been on leave since June 7 due to a “personal injury”. Her lawyers claim that before she went on leave, she struggled to sleep, was vomiting, and suffered from anxiety, significant distress and “stress to the point of incapacity”.
George claimed that van Onselen had her move desks so a more junior journo could use her desk as well as allegedly sent scripts of her work to Health Minister Greg Hunt and other claims identified in the SMH report. Hunt has not publicly commented on that claim.
She further alleged that 10 threatened her with disciplinary action when she wouldn’t make a statement about an alleged sexist comment she overheard.
Peter van Onselen has not publicly commented on the claims made by Tegan George.
