Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion relationship: Timeline of events
BARNABY Joyce’s claim that it was Vikki Campion's idea to do a paid TV interview has led to more scrutiny in this long-running saga. These are the moments that led to his downfall and what happened behind the scenes.
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BARNABY Joyce’s claim that it was Vikki Campion's idea to do a paid TV interview has led to more scrutiny in this long-running saga which has made international headlines.
Here’s what we know of what happened ever since Ms Campion first went to work for the embattled former Deputy Prime Minister.
MORE: Barnaby Joyce says paid interview was Vikki's idea
MORE: Barnaby Joyce resigns over his affair scandal
JUNE 2016
Vikki Campion goes to work on Mr Joyce’s New England campaign for the 2016 election as a media adviser. She had previously worked for former NSW Nationals Deputy Premier Troy Grant.
AUGUST 2016
Ms Campion begins working in Mr Joyce’s office as his media adviser.
She and her former fiance John Bergin call off their upcoming wedding during August.
The couple had been due to marry on November 5, 2016.
DECEMBER 2016
Mr Joyce’s Chief of staff Di Hallam reportedly seeks Joyce’s approval to have Campion transferred out of office. Hallam later quits to take up departmental role.
FEBRUARY 2017
Ms Campion is photographed in a Sydney bar with Mr Joyce.
MARCH 2017
Barnaby Joyce claimed taxpayer-funded allowances to stay 90 minutes from his family home while still with his wife Natalie. Mr Joyce repeatedly claimed the $372 a night allowance to sleep in Armidale, just over 100km away. As a minister, Mr Joyce is entitled to claim the taxpayer-funded allowance to spend nights away from home only if he has ministerial business. The Sunday Telegraph could not find no record of media events or parliamentary business in Armidale on those nights.
APRIL 2017
Ms Campion leaves Barnaby Joyce’s office and is transferred to Nationals senator and Resource Minister Matt Canavan’s office as a media adviser working on a social media and digital role. The exact date has not been specified.
Natalie Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister’s estranged wife, reportedly confronts Campion in Tamworth.
In February 2018, Mrs Joyce says her husband’s affair with Ms Campion began when she was working in his office.
Mr Joyce refuted that claim today, saying Ms Campion was not his partner at the time.
He said he and his wife had tried to reconcile in April.
Barnaby Joyce kept a taxpayer-funded Royal Australian Navy chopper waiting on the tarmac in Queensland to attend to Vikki Campion. The Daily Telegraph revealed he was about 45 minutes late on April 9, as she was unwell.
MAY 2017
At the NSW Nationals conference in Broken Hill colleagues describe Mr Joyce as “a mess”.
JUNE 2017
June 14: Mr Joyce and his wife attend the Midwinter Ball at Parliament House together.
Mrs Joyce joins her husband on an official trip to the UK, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands on an official seven-day trip in late June, where he discusses Australia’s trade future with Britain and the EU in the wake of Brexit.
June 25: The couple visit London Bridge to pay respects to victims of the Borough Market Islamic terror attack.
JULY 2017
July 25: Matt Canavan steps down from his ministerial role after being told by his mother that he might be an Italian citizen. His case is later referred to the High Court.
Ms Campion leaves Mr Canavan’s office after he resigns from Cabinet.
The Daily Telegraphhas reported she returned to work in Mr Joyce’s office temporarily before she was later transferred to Nationals MP Damian Drum’s office in August. Mr Joyce’s office has not confirmed the dates.
Ms Campion would have fallen pregnant mid-July if, as Mr Joyce confirmed today, the couple are expecting a baby together in mid-April.
AUGUST 2017
August 14: Mr Joyce tells Parliament he might be a dual citizen through holding New Zealand citizenship by descent. Mr Joyce refers his case to the High Court but does not step aside as Deputy Prime Minister or Agriculture and Water Resources Minister.
Ms Campion is understood to have been transferred to Mr Drum’s office in late August.
He already has a media adviser. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is reportedly reassured by Joyce that the relationship with Campion is over. Drum says he was told the same thing. Former Joyce chief of staff Di Hallam takes up a senior position with the Inland Rail project.
SEPTEMBER 2017
Natalie Joyce reportedly asks a family friend, Catholic priest Father Frank Brennan, to counsel Joyce. Campion is seen managing Joyce media events at the federal Nationals conference in Canberra.
OCTOBER 2017
October 27: The High Court hands down its ruling on the ‘citizenship seven’: Joyce and four other MPs are ruled ineligible to sit in Parliament for holding dual citizenship.
October 29: New England by-election campaign officially begins.
Ms Campion reportedly takes stress leave.
NOVEMBER 2017
Natalie Joyce holidays in Bali with a daughter.
A man in a pub in Inverell angers Joyce during election campaign by reportedly saying “Say hello to your mistress”.
DECEMBER 2017
December 2: Mr Joyce wins the New England by-election. He is sworn back into Parliament a few days later.
December 7: Mr Joyce confirms he has separated from his wife in a speech to Parliament during the same-sex marriage debate.
Ms Campion’s employment in Mr Drum’s office ends in December. The date has not been confirmed.
Her redundancy package is approved. She and Joyce move into an Armidale property provided rent-free by businessman Greg Maguire
JANUARY 2018
Mr Joyce and Ms Campion holiday together in north Queensland and NSW north coast.
They stayed at the Pacific Dawn Luxury Apartments at Wooli on the NSW north coast for about five days, after returning from a trip to north Queensland where they were seen swimming at a popular Townsville rock pool and dining on the seafront at Palm Cove, north of Cairns.
FEBRUARY 2018
February 7: The Daily Telegraph reports Mr Joyce has moved in with Ms Campion, and the couple are expecting a child in April.
Since then, Mr Joyce has confirmed Ms Campion is now his partner.
February 13: Joyce denies Ms Campion was his partner when she worked in Senator Canavan’s office. Mr Joyce publicly apologised to his wife Natalie, their four daughters and his new partner Vikki, for the hurt caused as his affair saga unfolds.
Mr Joyce denied there was any breach over the roles taken up by Ms Campion in Senator Canavan and Mr Drum’s offices last year.
He confirmed he did not discuss Ms Campion’s role with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull or his office as Vikki was not his partner.
Mr Joyce’s estranged wife Natalie’s statement last week seemingly refutes Mr Joyce’s claim that he was not in a relationship with Ms Campion when she worked for Senator Canavan.
“I understand that this affair has been going on for many months and started when she was a paid employee,” Mrs Joyce said in a statement when the affair was first reported.
Mr Joyce refuses to step down as leader of the Nationals, as Mr Turnbull told Question Time it was up to the Deputy PM to address questions about his affair. Mr Turnbull was forced to defend the definition of “partner” to justify why Mr Joyce was not in breach of the ministerial code of conduct in another humiliating day for the government
More revelations surfaced of Mr Joyce reportedly spending 50 nights in Canberra when Parliament was not sitting — and Australian taxpayers were forced to foot the bill.
Mr Joyce’s office said his extended stay in Canberra can be explained by the fact that his electorate does not have permanent commonwealth offices like capital cities.
February 14: Senior government figures abandon Mr Joyce, saying the scandal engulfing cannot go on and his position is “untenable”. Mr Joyce fires back in Question Time over a declaration on his interest register that referred to living rent-free for six months at a townhouse in Armidale owned by his friend, multi-millionaire Greg Maguire, after the New England by-election and the breakdown of his marriage. Mr Joyce has been living there with Ms Campion. Mr Joyce said he had declared the tenancy, even though there was no need for him to do so as it was a gift from a friend.
February 15: Malcolm Turnbull holds a press conference where he said Mr Joyce had made a “shocking error of judgment” that “appalled” everyone, as he changed ministerial standards to include a ban on sex between ministers and their staff. Mr Turnbull made the change after telling Question Time that Mr Joyce would be taking leave next week while he is in the US seeing US President Donald Trump. Mathias Cormann was nominated to take on the role of Acting Prime Minister.
February 16: Mr Joyce responds to Mr Turnbull’s comments about his affair in an explosive press conference, saying they were “inept” and “unnecessary”. Mr Turnbull also denies trying to influence the Nationals and their future decisions about who their leader is. Mr Joyce later attacked the media over reporting of his decision to take up the offer of friend, multi-millionaire Greg Maguire, to live rent free in his townhouse in Armidale, saying it drew dangerous attention to the home when he had received death threats in the past.
February 17: Mr Joyce and Mr Turnbull hold crisis talks in Sydney following their public spat over Mr Joyce’s affair with a former staffer. The pair met for an hour in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Offices, and sources say the meeting was constructive as they worked out their differences.
February 18: Mr Turnbull appears in an interview with 60 Minutes, where he says he and Mr Joyce can work together and describes his relationship as “frank” with him. He also consulted his wife Lucy about his new sex ban in the wake of Mr Joyce’s affair. It was also revealed that a group of National Party MPs secretly discussed a plot on the messaging service WhatsApp to try to oust embattled leader Barnaby Joyce this week.
February 19: Newspoll results show a majority of Australians think Mr Joyce should quit over his affair scandal. Mr Turnbull says it has been a distraction for the government, and revealed his wife Lucy had had reached out to Natalie Joyce, Mr Joyce’s estranged wife, after the affair became public. He said he and Mr Joyce could “move on” after their public spat. Mr Joyce slapped down a call by the WA Nationals for him to resign as federal leader.
February 20: Natalie Joyce tells friends she does not want Barnaby Joyce to lose his job over his affair, as Tony Abbott says the Nationals would be weaker without Mr Joyce if he were to resign. Mr Abbott stands by him as the saga continues.
February 20: Barnaby Joyce gets roasted by US comedian John Oliver. Oliver made fun of the scandal by pointing out that Mr Joyce had opposed gay marriage in Australia due to his traditional family values. “You might think that that is hypocritical, but in reality Joyce has such incredible family values that he can’t restrict them to just one family,” he told viewers.
“The Australian media has understandably jumped on this story like a deputy prime minister with a wife and four children jumping on his 33-year-old former media adviser.”
February 21: Mr Joyce and Ms Campion do their first sit-down interview, saying only God could judge him on his conduct. They said they feared their baby son would be viewed “somehow less worthy than other children”. The couple claimed they had been “forced out” of their rent-free townhouse in Armidale due to media intrusion as they appealed to politicians and members of the public to give them privacy. The Deputy PM insisted his working relationship with Mr Turnbull was fine and said that he had never directly asked him about the relationship with Ms Campion before it was revealed on the front page of The Daily Telegraph. And even if the PM did ask him upfront, Mr Joyce admitted he probably would have lied. “(The Prime Minister) never asked any direct questions and to be honest, if I believed it was private, I wouldn’t have told him either,” Mr Joyce said. Ms Campion said that her son’s middle names would be in honour of her two brothers. Acting PM Mathias Cormann says he supports Mr Joyce.
February 22: A sexual harassment claim has been made against Mr Joyce by a woman from WA. West Australian MPs have described the woman as “very credible”. But Mr Joyce says it is a ““spurious and defamatory” complaint.
Nationals MP Andrew Broad has called on Mr Joyce to resign and said he would raise it in a party room meeting next week.
He also made a cryptic remark about the character of Mr Joyce in the wake of his first interview with Ms Campion. Victorian Andrew Broad used Twitter to draw a link between the Nationals leader and the words of the late US Christian preacher Billy Graham. “Quote from the late Billy Graham ‘when wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost’ ... telling words for the Leadership of the National Party,” he posted.
February 23: Barnaby Joyce resigns from his role as leader of the Nationals Party and Deputy Prime Minister. He officially stepped down on Monday February 26 at 8am at his party room meeting.
APRIL 2018
April 16: Ms Campion gives birth to Sebastian Joyce at Armidale Hospital.
MAY 2018
May 8: We get a first look at baby Sebastian being cradled by his mother as Mr Joyce drinks a coffee at Armidale Airport.
May 26: News breaks that Mr Joyce and Ms Campion have struck a $150,000 interview deal with Channel Seven's Sunday Night program, who reportedly engaged in a bidding war with Channel Nine's 60 Minutes for the highly-sought after interview, which is set to also feature young Sebastian.
May 29: Barnaby Joyce's decision to accept money for a tell-all interview is savaged by senior government ministers, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who said it was "not a course of action I would have encouraged him to take." In the face of intense uproar, Mr Joyce said it was Ms Campion's idea to accept money. “Remember there are other people in this interview, being Vikki and Seb, so if it was just an interview with me as a politician, sure, I am not going to charge for that,” he told The Australian. “But that is not what they wanted, they wanted an interview obviously to get Vikki’s side of the story and like most mothers she said: ‘Seeing as I am being screwed over and there are drones and everything over my house in the last fortnight, paparazzi waiting for me, if everybody else is making money then (I am) going to make money out of it’.”
Originally published as Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion relationship: Timeline of events
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