THE FOURTH ESTATE:

Journalists who work in the Canberra press gallery have not voted unanimously to disband the gallery following stinging criticism of them by one of the nation’s leading and best loved politics opinionistas.

The 180 odd – and some of them are really odd – journalists and their support staff who work fulltime in the gallery didn’t meet last night in a back venue of a Manuka watering hole where they didn’t urgently discuss a motion to scrap the gallery immediately.

Their quick non-action followed comments by Sky LNPNews host Paul Murray who blasted the press gallery for “hating Opposition leader Peter Dutton and being ready to call him ‘Aussie Trump’.”

In one of those typical four-to-five par yarns Sky LNPNews posts on the Microsoft Start search engine website many times a day to summarise debates between hosts on Sky LNPNews Australia television, Murray told fellow Sky LNP News host Chris Kenny: “There was nothing in Peter Dutton’s [Budget reply speech] nor anything he said since, which was about where people come from, what government they believe in.”

“But it just becomes a proxy – the gallery so ready to hate Dutton because they denied in part the Voice.

“They are ready to go ‘he’s Aussie Trump, he’s Aussie Trump’, so if they can turn around and find ways to get there.”

A senior member of the gallery who works for Newscorpse took time out from writing a scathing criticism of Airbus Albo and his ongoing jets scandal to tell The Bug: “We might very well have had that meeting and disbanded the gallery if what Murray was quoted as saying in that online post had made just a teeny bit more sense.

“Did anything in those three paragraphs of direct speech mentioned above make any sense at all?”

A Seven Network journalist agreed the meeting to disband the galley might very well have gone ahead if Murray’s words hadn’t basically been “a load of mumbo jumbo”.

Taking time out from compiling a scathing follow-up to the shocking decision by the wife of the Treasurer Jim Chalmers to wear a $4000 designer dress to his budget speech when so many Australians are battling cost-of-living woes, the journalist admitted that “probably far too many” gallery members had filed stories calling Mr Dutton an Aussie Trump.

“Too many of us did that, and not just the left-wing, woke-obsessed, unfair and unprofessional scribes from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“Besides, I have no idea where Murray’s coming from. Wouldn’t he regard Dutton being compared with Trump a huge political advantage? I know I do.”

A Nine Network federal politics scribe told us: “Having read those three pars attributed to Murray, I want to know what he’s on and where can we get some.

“What the fuck does …‘hate Dutton because they denied in part the Voice‘ even mean?”

And ABC political journalist Dan Bourchier sheepishly told us: “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve referred to Peter Dutton as the Aussie Trump. Along with other ABC staff, I’ve certainly banged on remorselessly about that and Paul Murray was right to call us out over that.

“I can only promise to try to do better in future.”

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