Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion enjoy tropical getaway as he begins highway inspection trip
BARNABY Joyce’s first big trip as infrastructure and transport minister began with a rock pool swim and oceanfront dinner with his ex-adviser now pregnant lover.
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BARNABY Joyce’s first big trip as infrastructure and transport minister began with a rock pool swim and oceanfront dinner with his ex-adviser cum pregnant lover.
On January 4, a fortnight after being sworn in to the portfolios, Mr Joyce told ABC Radio he had “spent the last week going up the inland and then starting from Cairns, north of Cairns and driving down the Bruce Highway and talking to people along the way about road safety and road conditions”.
But that wasn’t all he had been doing while in the tropics.
On December 29, Mr Joyce and Vikki Campion were seen dining at the ritzy holiday spot Palm Cove, north of Cairns.
“He drank beer (and) was on his phone a lot,” a Melbourne woman, who photographed Mr Joyce outside Anita’s Spice Restaurant, told News Corp Australia. Asked if she could be sure his dining companion was Ms Campion, the woman, who requested anonymity, said: “Unless he has another very pregnant girlfriend up his sleeve it was definitely (her).”
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Three days earlier they had been in Townsville. Colin Dwyer, an economist and former conservative political aspirant, was surprised to come across the cavorting couple at a local swimming spot.
“They looked like two people who were in love,” Mr Dwyer said.
On January 2, Mr Joyce posted storm images on Facebook from Gladstone, saying he had been checking out the Bruce Highway from Cairns to Gladstone. It is unclear if Ms Campion was travelling with him at this time. His spokesman declined to say.
The next day he was dropped off by an unknown person outside Gympie where he inspected a further section of the highway with the region’s federal parliamentarian, Liberal National MP Llew O’Brien, whose spokesman did not respond when contacted.
Mr Joyce told the Gympie Times newspaper: “I woke up in Gladstone this morning and was Googling the news, when I saw (on The Gympie Times website) that Mr O’Brien was expecting me. So I said to the boss: ‘Looks like we’re going to Gympie’.”
Mr Joyce’s spokesman said the reference to “boss” related to his chief of staff, not 32-year-old “Miss Campion”, his former adviser and now live-in partner.
The spokesman said Mr Joyce, 50, made no accommodation expense claim until January 3 and that no travel claim was made for Ms Campion.
But the spokesman repeatedly refused to provide answers to questions about car expenses during the period.
On January 4, Mr Joyce attended the state funeral of Lady Florence Bjelke-Petersen at Kingaroy.
A few days later, he and Ms Campion — formerly a reporter with The Daily Telegraph — were seen at a pub in Wooli, north of Coffs Harbour.
In an interview on ABC TV’s 7.30 on Wednesday Mr Joyce said it was “fair” he be scrutinised about “the intersection between public expenses” and his private life.
“We have made sure that private matters remain private and anything on a public account has been to do with my work as a politician,” Mr Joyce said.
Email: john.rolfe@news.com.au
Originally published as Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion enjoy tropical getaway as he begins highway inspection trip
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