Crikey and its senior writer Guy Rundle have been widely condemned for publishing obscene comments on Friday about the relationship between the Labor frontbencher David Feeney and his wife, lawyer Liberty Sanger.

The ALP member for Batman, who is likely to retain his seat, had a rocky election campaign in which it was revealed he failed to include a $2.3m property in his parliamentary interests register. He then stumbled badly over Labor policy in an interview.

In a pre-election piece on the Greens, Rundle called Feeney “fat” and questioned why Sanger would be attracted to him. He also implied the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, was amused by his offensive comments about the couple’s sex life.

“Another car pulls up, a flash of blond hair and Liberty Sanger, Mrs David Feeney, gets out, in red T-shirt, ready to deputise. I’ve got the jokes ready: ‘Which of your houses will you be retiring to?’ ‘Did David fall in love with you because your name means ‘free sausages’ in Latin, and he had a Pavolovian reaction?’ – but ahhhh Liberty is too nice a person for that. I stand behind the spruikers and try to crack them up.

“‘David and Liberty – I mean, what can that be? What the hell can that be? It’s gotta be tongue, right? It’s always tongue in these cases. I bet that fat man has a tongue like a big wet flesh carpet. I bet it’s like Oscars night …’ The spruikers are wavering. Di Natale hears it, is trying not to laugh.”

The Victorian state minister for small business, Philip Dalidakis, called on Crikey to apologise for the “pathetic” comments and the federal Labor MP Tim Watts said the comments were demeaning and humiliating towards women in politics.

ABC journalists Raf Epstein and Patricia Karvelas also complained loudly about the piece on Twitter.

On Monday morning the editor of Crikey, Cassidy Knowlton, initially defended its publication albeit admitting she found it “completely disgusting”.

“Not my words,” Knowlton said on Twitter. “Guy Rundle’s words & agenda … But in a pro-Greens partisan piece I thought ppl needed to know how he writes about Feeney.”

But a few hours later Knowlton had a change of mind and apologised. She told Guardian Australia Crikey had decided “in retrospect it was a mistake to publish those lines”.

“In an earlier version of this story, Guy Rundle, high on election fever, went beyond the pale,” she said. “And in the cold light of day we’re happy to concede we shouldn’t have released those lines to the world. They have been removed. Crikey apologises for any offence caused.”

[FREE] Crikey readers call out Guy Rundle for David Feeney comment, and Crikey's editor responds with an apology: https://t.co/Zw6nFQt0h5 — Crikey.com.au (@crikey_news) July 4, 2016

Rundle has not publicly apologised.

