THE FOURTH ESTATE:

SYDNEY: The editor-in-chief of The Australian Financial Review, Michael Stutchbury, remains in an inner-city hospital here, lapsing in and out of consciousness from severe shock, after his main politics writer Phillip Coorey penned a piece that suggested the veteran scribe has finally understood how Australia’s compulsory electoral voting system works.

Stutchbury (above) fainted dead away in his office after a heated exchange with Coorey over his piece in a special pre-Easter edition of the Fin. Review in which Coorey opined that Labor was heading towards minority government if current polls were accurate and stayed that way.

He penned his piece after the most recent Newspoll showed Labor on 32 per cent primary, the LNP on 37 and the Greens on 13. Labor won majority government in 2022 with 32.58 percent of the primary vote.

A senior reporter in the paper’s newsroom told The Bug he heard Stutchbury shout out loudly after calling in Coorey for a dressing down: “For fuck’s sake, Phil. I know you were probably only piggy-backing on what The Australian‘s Simon Benson stupidly wrote on Monday but really, mate, what the fuck were you thinking?

“Stutchbury screamed: ‘You are the co-inventor of the Coorey-Uhlmann (Chris Uhlmann) method of determining close elections, namely that if Labor’s primary vote ever dipped below the LNP’s, electoral mayhem could only be avoided if voters backed in the good, strong, stable LNP, the only side of politics that can manage the economy well.

“He continued: ‘With the LNP five primary votes ahead surely we’re home and hosed under the Coorey-Uhlmann method?

“Phil replied that you needed to add a swag of the Greens vote to Labor’s and Stutchbury shouted over the top of him: ‘And, what, now all of a sudden you want to be professional and fucking objective? What the fuck has happened to you?

“Phil started to apologise but Mr Stutchbury was having none of it. He shouted: “Do you know what’s going to fucking happen if we keep writing shit like this that Labor is likely to be the only side of politics that can win government next fucking year, albeit in minority? Voters are going to swing towards Labor for stability, you stupid cunt!’

“The stupid cunt … sorry, Phil … tried to explain that by the time of the next election, he would once again be pushing the Coorey-Uhlmann method as hard as he possibly could.

“Phil tried to apologise once again for what he said was a stupid, momentary brain fade but Mr Stutchbury was having none of that, shouting: ‘It could be too late by then! Australia simply will not survive two terms of socialist, society-wrecking, Labor. No way!’

“It was then that Mt Stutchbury clutched his head with both hands and fainted dead away and we had to call the ambulance.”

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