Network 10’s political editor Peter van Onselen (among those in main picture) has quit to return to his academic career.

Mr van Onselen said it was time for him to resume his political science career as a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and as professor of something else at Griffith University.

Another Peter van Onselen denied retirement rumours, saying he would remain working in the media as a right-wing columnist for the national broadshit The Australian.

That Mr van Onselen later contacted The Bug to apologise for using the label “right wing” when “a columnist for The Australian” would have been sufficient to indicate his personal political leanings.

“If I were the other van Onselen I would have identified the tautology much sooner,” the van Onselen joked.

“After all as an academic the other van Onselen has taught ‘ologies’ for many years.”

Another Peter van Onselen would not be drawn on his controversial criticism of former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame, after she snubbed then prime minister Scott Morrison at an official reception at The Lodge.

Similarly, a Peter van Onselen leapt to the defence of another Peter van Onselen who in 2020 had labelled since-defeated federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg and former federal attorney-general and personal friend Christian Porter as “the future of the Liberal Party”.

“All I will say on that is that the forecast by Peter van Onselen actually turned out to be correct. What happened to both Josh and Christian is the future of the Liberal Party,” Mr van Onselen said.

Another Peter van Onselen would not comment on his confident prediction before the 2019 election that Bill Shorten was the prime minister in waiting and his prediction of a win by Scott Morrison at last year’s federal poll.

But a colleague of that van Onselen confided in The Bug: “With brilliant insights such as those, he’d have to be the PvO who’s a politics professor, surely?”

When contacted, another Peter van Onselen took responsibility for reversing the 2022 federal election prediction in a column in The Australian on polling day which forecast a win by Anthony Albanese .

The remaining Peter van Onselens could not be contacted for comment as they were busy filing copy or filming segments for various MSM platform around the nation.