James Campbell, who is also a Herald Sun journalist, has been asked to stay off air for four weeks in wake of ‘colourful’ comments

This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

A Herald Sun journalist has been suspended by Sky News after joking on air that Bridget McKenzie should take a bottle of whisky and a revolver and shoot herself amid the sports grants controversy.

James Campbell, a senior journalist and regular Sky commentator, made the remarks on Sky’s AM Agenda two days before the former Nationals deputy leader resigned.

“I suspect that this has got a long way to run even if Bridget McKenzie eventually does the right thing and takes the bottle of whisky and the revolver into the room and practices her shooting on herself,” Campbell said on Friday 31 January. McKenzie resigned two days later over a conflict of interest related to the government’s sports grants program.

Sky News host Tom Connell sounded taken aback at the comment and said: “Uh, all right that’s pretty colourful, James.”

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Sources said following the program Campbell was asked by Sky News, where he is an unpaid contributor, to stay off air for four weeks for making the offensive remarks. He remains on the Herald Sun as national political editor.

Campbell declined to comment.

The former chief of staff for McKenzie, Gerard McManus, said the former cabinet minister did not complain to Sky about Campbell’s remarks and accepted an immediate apology from him and Sky News management.

“I’m a firm believer in people’s right to free speech and I understand that you can get carried away in the heat of the moment,” McManus told Guardian Australia. “James called soon after the program and apologised to Bridget for his remarks. She accepted his apology.”

McKenzie resigned from Scott Morrison’s ministry 10 days ago in an effort to stem the rolling controversy and political damage over sports grants before the opening of the 2020 parliamentary session.

According to a scathing report from the Australian National Audit Office last month, the Coalition awarded $100m in sport grants that were not assessed on their merits in order to favour “targeted” Coalition seats at the May 2019 election.

It took two weeks for McKenzie to go, despite the report finding she ignored the merit-based assessment undertaken by Sports Australia for almost half the successful projects.

Campbell is an award-winning journalist at the Melbourne tabloid and a former state politics editor and opinion editor of the Herald Sun and Sunday Herald Sun.

He has twice been awarded the Grant Hattam Quill Award for investigative journalism by the Melbourne Press Club and in 2013 won the Walkley Award for Scoop of the Year.

The chief executive of Sky News Australia Paul Whittaker has been approached for comment.