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PRESSURE IS MOUNTING on Australia’s deputy prime minister amid fresh allegations that his affair with a younger former staffer, who is pregnant with their child, breached ministerial rules.
Barnaby Joyce has been under intense scrutiny since the relationship was splashed across the front page of Sydney’s Daily Telegraph last week, with his wife of 24 years making clear she and their four daughters were devastated.
He made a public apology to them yesterday and defended the two jobs, one for a minister, that his 33-year-old lover Vikki Campion was given after she stopped working for him last year.
Joyce – internationally renowned for threatening to euthanise Hollywood star Johnny Depp’s dogs over a quarantine violation – denied he breached the ministerial code of conduct.
It stipulates that “partners” of ministers cannot be given jobs in ministerial offices without the express approval of the prime minister.
“I am very aware of the ministerial code of conduct,” Joyce, head of the National Party which is in a coalition with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals, told reporters in Canberra.
It is without a shadow of a doubt that Vikki Campion is my partner now. But when she worked in my office, she was not my partner. When she worked in (Resources Minister) Matt Canavan’s office, she was not my partner.
Joyce reportedly updated his formal register of interests last month to say he was separated from his wife, but has not added Campion, who is expecting their baby in April, as his partner.
Resignation demands
The growing scandal has seen the Labor opposition question whether it is tenable for Joyce to continue in his position, while the Greens have demanded he resign. Breaching the code of conduct could be grounds for him to be removed from office.
New claims in the Telegraph of inappropriate behaviour by Joyce at a pub after an official function in 2011 were slammed by the 50-year-old as “serious defamation”.
Turnbull and the Liberals have sought to distance themselves from the saga, which comes just months after the coalition survived a crisis over lawmakers’ citizenship that threatened their slim parliamentary majority.
“The deputy PM… said that he had not discussed Ms Campion’s employment with me or my office. He confirmed that the Nationals were responsible for decisions relating to staffing,” Turnbull told parliament on Monday.
Joyce was also embroiled in the nationality saga that saw a host of parliamentarians resign over a once-obscure rule barring dual citizens from federal office, and he had to stand for re-election in his rural constituency.
He campaigned on a platform of being a pillar of the community who upheld conservative values, including marriage, and comfortably won the crucial by-election.
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Ah bless politicians ….. Talks from both sides of his mouth and ends career in a quagemire..all is well.
He loved it when She played with his didgeridoo.
@Red hurley: And so did she.
@Red hurley: No different on the other side of the world for the political system
Is Joyce a Irish name
@FlopFlipU: With his rank hypocrisy, He’d feel at home in Dáil Éireann.
@Ruairi Gagarin: I concur
@FlopFlipU: Predominantly a Galway/Mayo name I think.John Joe Joyce was good at the bare knuckle fist fights.
Typical Kiwi behaviour.
“Conservative values” – lying ,cheating,philandering,fraud,embezzlement,
At least he’s been pressured to resign. Here, we’d have all the voices saying: we can’t accuse him of anything. We’ll have to examine all the facts of the case and he’ll be given legal representation to defend himself. Then we’d have a tribunal which would drag on for years, cost several hundred million and would conclude with a report that went something like this: Everybody knew that Somebody did it. Somebody said that Anybody could have done it. Nobody knew what Anybody was doing. So Somebody blamed Everybody because Nobody knew if Anybody was to blame. There you have it, the Irish political way of the ruling class fudging their dirty laundry to bamboozle the masses. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
This doofus I remember was acting the big man when those eejits Depp and heard brought a dog into Australia without declaring. He over-egged it. Egg on his face now.
Ooiiii deputy prime minister!!!
Jobs for the sons, daughters, wives, uncles, in-laws, etc. is par for the course here and you better not criticise it. After all, merit is totally irrelevant.
Like a true politician.
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