Politics

Barnaby Joyce’s mistress Vikki Campion apologises for hurt caused by affair

Jun 04, 2018

Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion, pictured during their interview with Channel 7's 'Sunday Night' program back in June. Source: Channel 7

Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion have defended their decision to accept what was reportedly a $150,000 cheque for talking about their relationship on a current affairs show, saying that everyone else was making money out of their baby so they decided he should also benefit from some of their notoriety.

The couple, who got together when Campion was serving as a media adviser to Joyce, the then-leader of the National Party and Australia’s deputy prime minister, told Channel 7’s Sunday Night program that the cash for the interview – the amount of which they didn’t confirm but has been widely reported as $150,000 – would be put in a trust fund for son Sebastian Curtis Scott Joyce.

“Everybody else is making money out of Sebastian except for Sebastian … Let’s take some that, put it in a trust, and he can use that for his education and his health,” Campion said. “Not a cent is going to us, this is a trust account for Sebastian. Nothing’s going to me, nothing’s going to Vikki, this is for a young bloke called Sebastian Joyce,” Joyce added.

Campion, who was speaking on camera about their relationship – which came about while Joyce was still married to wife Natalie, with whom he has four daughters – for the first time, admitted she was nervous about the interview.

“I’m very nervous because we said we’d never talk about this and it got to the point where we had to end the circus,” she said, looking close to tears. “When you’re walking around with a three-week-old baby being papped, I’d do anything to protect him.”

Despite the media circus around her pregnancy and the couple’s affair, Campion, 32, said that she and Joyce, who resigned his leadership of his party and the deputy prime ministership in the wake of their relationship becoming public, were stronger than ever as a partnership.

“I feel like we’ve been through more than many married couples,” she told Sunday Night‘s Alex Cullen. “I think our child was forged in the fires and he’s going to be tough … Our relationship has only gotten strong.”

That said, the former journalist did admit to being hurt when Joyce told the Sydney Morning Herald before Sebastian was born in April that there was a “grey area” around the baby’s paternity. Joyce told Cullen that the couple had made a decision together, although it’s not clear from the interview what they hoped would be achieved by revealing there was uncertainty over the identity Sebastian’s father, except perhaps to reduce the public pressure on Joyce.

“Yeah, well it was actually the decision we made together and we were trying …” Joyce, 51, said on the program that aired on Sunday night. “I didn’t say ‘use the words grey area’,” Campion broke in. “I was deeply hurt by the grey area headline, definitely.”

But the pair continued to claim that no media outlet contacted them to ask about the baby’s paternity prior to publishing photographs of a heavily pregnant Campion. This is at odds with the Daily Telegraph‘s insistence that it contacted Joyce for comment before running its exclusive photograph of Campion and revealing that Joyce was the father of the child. And while Joyce continued to criticise coverage of their affair, Campion did acknowledge that there were “public interest” issues at stake.

Sunday Night reported that the couple’s affair – although Joyce refused in the interview to characterise it as such – started in late 2016 and was the subject of rumour in political circles by April 2017. She learned she was pregnant in “late winter” of 2017.

They acknowledged that when Campion learned she was pregnant, something she said she had believed would be very unlikely due to a medical condition, it left them in what they knew was a “very complex situation”. Joyce was known for being strongly anti-abortion, having frequently campaigned on a religious, pro-family platform on which he championed the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman. Also, he was married at the time, not going public with his marriage split until December 2017.

“Barnaby is strongly pro-life, I believe that a woman has a right over her own body up to a point, certainly up until the baby has a heartbeat,” Campion told Sunday Night of their dilemma. Campion also said that she came under pressure from unnamed people in the National Party to abort the baby, and that she considered doing so, even buying the medication to procure an abortion, but decided against it.

Joyce did say, however, that as soon as he knew of Campion’s pregnancy, “I knew the day would come where I’d have to step down”. This is at odds with his behaviour during the period, in which he successfully stood for by-election in his seat of New England and repeatedly declined to stand down when pressured to do so after her pregnancy became public. He admitted on the show that he fought to hold on to his position “more out of spite than logic”.

Neither Campion or Joyce would confirm when their clandestine relationship began, both insisting that they had begun as close colleagues and friends. Joyce said only that he had spent “too long away from home” and that you “live on the road” as a politician, while Campion noted that their relationship moved from professional to personal “very slowly”.

While Joyce appeared unrepentant throughout the interview, refusing to comment on claims that Campion and Natalie Joyce had an argument over the affair, and only admitting that he was “living a lie” after being pushed into the admission by Cullen. But Campion acknowledged that the betrayed wife exchanged words with her that weren’t fit to be repeated on television.

“I never intended for any of this to happen, I never intended for anyone to be hurt, and I’m really sorry,” she said, as Joyce insisted that the young woman shouldn’t be seen as a ‘scarlet woman’ over her part in the affair. “it takes two to tango,” he said.

The interview didn’t touch upon the fact Joyce helped Campion find two well-paid media advisory roles with other Nationals MPs after she left Joyce’s office under a cloud of speculation over their relationship.

Campion, however, appeared somewhat chastened at points, at first alluding to the fact that the couple’s critics likely had their own skeletons in the closet, but then tearfully adding, “I apologise to every innocent party that was dragged through this, including Sebastian. I’m really sorry, really, but you can’t help who you fall in love with”.