Barnaby Joyce may face leadership challenge as Nationals MP Andrew Broad set to raise it in party room

BARNABY Joyce could be facing a leadership challenge as soon as next week, after a Nationals MP said he believes he should resign and go to the backbench.

BARNABY Joyce could be facing a leadership challenge as soon as next week, after a Nationals MP confirmed he will raise it at a room meeting next week.

Victorian Nationals MP Andrew Broad has called for Mr Joyce to quit as party leader and sit on the backbench.

The member for Mallee said it was clear Mr Joyce was not currently fit for the job and said it was in the national interest for him to stand down as deputy prime minister.

He told ABC Radio that Mr Joyce should resign and “spend some time on the backbench”.

He said that Mr Joyce is not making sound judgment.

“At this point in time his judgment has erred, he’s not thinking in a place where he can be put up as the acting prime minister of Australia, he needs some time out and time to re-group,” Mr Broad told ABC radio.

He said it would be “wise for the narrative of government” and the “delivery of government” for Mr Joyce to take a step backwards.

Mr Broad said the final straw was Mr Joyce’s “tell all” interview with Fairfax Media today about his relationship with his former staffer, Vikki Campion, and the pending birth of his child.

MORE: How Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion’s affair happened

Barnaby Joyce walks into the Royal Hotel Armidale while on leave. Picture: John Grainger

“He’s meant to be taking a break, and he’s clearly playing to the media,” Mr Broad said.

“This is an issue we should have let quitely die and get on with the core job but he’s not prepared to do that.”

“He doesn’t hold that view (that he should resign),” Mr Broad said.

“He should have some time out and clear his head,” the Nationals backbencher said, adding that it might be possible for him to come back to the leadership “in the fullness of time”.

Mr Broad said he doesn’t want to replace Mr Joyce but someone other than him should be leading the party.

Mr Broad said he had a resolution from his Nationals branch calling on Mr Joyce to resign and he would take those views to a party room meeting in Canberra on Monday.

He said Mr Joyce needed to stand down in “the best interests of the party, the country, and to get our narrative back on track”.

Mr Broad said a spill motion against Mr Joyce was a “matter for the party room” next Monday and would not endorse an alternative leader.

Andrew Broad at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture Kym Smith

While he had made this clear to Mr Joyce, he said he was refusing to quit.

“We need to get this done and get on with talking about the things that are important.”

The Deputy Prime Minister has been under attack and been called on to resign in the wake of his affair with former staffer Vikki Campion.

Mr Joyce is currently on leave while Mathias Cormann has taken on his top job as Acting Prime Minister while Malcolm Turnbull is overseas in Washington DC with US President Donald Trump.

Mr Broad’s comments come after he posted an apparent criticism of Mr Joyce’s leadership on Twitter overnight after his interview and the passing of US evangelical 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 wrote.

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.

— Andrew Broad MP (@broad4mallee) February 21, 2018

Mr Cormann has thrown his support behind Mr Joyce with a personal plea to the public to remember there are “real humans beings” involved.

The Finance Minister, now Acting Prime Minister, called for an end to the intense scrutiny on the Deputy Prime Minister and Ms Campion.

It also comes as Mr Joyce last night declared only God could judge him on his conduct in his first public interview with Ms Campion, 33, about their affair.

Mr Joyce told Fairfax Media the tide would turn in his favour because people would “get bored” of the coverage.

“This should be a very simple story — a bloke whose marriage broke down is in a relationship with another person and they are having a child,” he said.

“Now it seems to have gone into some sort of morality discussion.

“That’s between me and my God. I can understand how Natalie can be angry, absolutely, but how it’s other people’s business, I don’t know.”

Former staffer Vikki Campion, who Barnaby Joyce is with after the breakdown of his 24 year marriage to wife Natalie.

In their interview with Fairfax Media, the Deputy PM and Ms Campion 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.

“It’s time to move on,” the Nationals Leader told Fairfax Media.

The Deputy PM insisted his working relationship with Malcolm Turnbull was fine and said that Mr Turnbull 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.

A pregnant Vikki Campion pictured in Canberra. Picture: John Grainger

Ms Campion refused to be photographed during the interview and offered just one comment, saying that her son’s middle names would be in honour of her two brothers.

“Their support has meant so much. They are the only people who knew,” Ms Campion told Fairfax Media.

Despite circulating reports about her significant pay packet, the former journalist and media adviser denied she was earning up to $190,000 when she worked for cabinet minister Matt Canavan.

Ms Campion produced payslips during the interview that showed she was paid about $133,000 a year in Mr Joyce’s office, $138,000 in Senator Canavan’s office, and $135,000 when she was employed under former chief whip Damian Drum.

She also revealed the public scrutiny had deeply affected her and that she had missed medical appointments because she was too scared to go out in public.

Barnaby Joyce says it’s time to move on. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

The pair spoke together for the first time in an interview at their controversial rent-free home in Armidale, which was provided by Mr Joyce’s wealthy businessman friend Greg Maguire.

Mr Joyce, who revealed the couple have only spent 14 nights in the apartment since January, said he wanted to conduct the interview there to show he wasn’t living for free in a “palace”.

“Mate, this is a bachelor’s pad,” Mr Joyce said.

The expecting parents will be moving out due to increased media scrutiny about a potential breach of the ministerial code of conduct putting the home’s location in the spotlight.

When asked how he felt about becoming a father again, Mr Joyce said: “The one thing that has deeply annoyed me is that there is somehow an inference that this child is somehow less worthy than other children, and it’s almost spoken about in the third person.”

Vikki Campion says her brothers have helped her cope. Picture: Adam Taylor

“I love my daughters. I have four beautiful daughters and I love them to death. And now I will have a son. I don’t pick winners, I’m not gonna love one more than another, but I’m not going to love one less than another either.

“I don’t want our child to grow up as some sort of public display. I have to stop it from the start. It’s a fact we are having a child, it’s a fact it’s a boy, it’s not more or less loved than any of my other children.

“I don’t want to say have sympathy for me. I just want people to look clinically at the facts and basically come to the conclusion he is not getting a gold star for his personal life, but he has made a commitment, he is with her, they’re having a child, and in a 2018 world there is nothing terribly much to see there.”

Originally published as Barnaby Joyce may face leadership challenge as Nationals MP Andrew Broad set to raise it in party room