It is an environment of excess.

There’s a breed of politicians who spend their days appealing to middle income families, talking about the cost of living, rising electricity bills and job creation.

Yet, in the insulated Canberra bubble they spend their nights in swanky restaurants boozing on pricey bottles of the best wine and flirting with young, sexy female staffers or journalists.

They may pop outside to call their wives and children back home in Sydney or Queensland or Melbourne, to say “goodnight”, before cancelling their Comcar and settling in for nocturnal naughtiness. It’s this dangerous and enticing environment that gave rise to
50-year-old Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s secret affair with his media adviser, Vikki Campion, 32.

It’s this culture that Malcolm Turnbull recognises must come to an end.

“This has raised this week, some very serious issues about the culture of this place, of this Parliament,” he said of Joyce’s love-child private scandal.

“But the truth is that it is deficient. It is truly deficient. It does not speak strongly enough for the values that we all should live, values of respect, respectful workplaces, of workplaces where women are respected.”

This culture risks creating a sexist place for women to work, at the very time gender diversity is being promoted in every major company across Australia.

“I recognise that respect in workplaces is not entirely a gender issue, of course,” he said.

“But the truth is, as we know, most of the ministers, most of the bosses in this building, if you like, are men and there is a gender, a real gender perspective here.”

Sex and power have always been inextricably linked.

One female colleague, a former Canberra correspondent, said: “I would get hit on by MPs all the time.

“There has been a cone of silence by everyone in Canberra about the atmosphere of booze and sex that exists between MPs, their staff and journalists.”

Alpha-male personalities are risk-takers. And risk-takers are more likely to have affairs.

Former chief of staff to Tony Abbott and now Sky television host Peta Credlin said the cultural issues in Parliament House stem from long sitting days nights and days, with young ambitious types who come to Canberra viewing it as all a “game.”

She implemented a rule in Abbott’s office that she did not want to see staff hanging around bars in Canberra on sitting nights.

“It’s not a good look and sure I was criticised as being too tough but as my mother would say, not much good happens after midnight,” she said.

Credlin said there has been an improvement in the culture over the past 20 years.

“If you want to talk about the boozing and the partying, I started in politics in 1998 and I think it was worse then than it is now,” she said.

“But there still is a significant group who treat politics like a bit of a boarding school and display bad behaviour. This often leads to rumours that are used to damage opponents.”

“There are just as many compromising relationships between journalists and political staff and MPs as there are relationships between MPs and staff.”

“But let’s not lose perspective — many MPs and staff do their job professionally and head home without getting themselves into trouble, and I have to say that’s the majority. But some almost go looking for it.”

Credlin is sceptical Mr Turnbull’s ban will achieve any real change in stopping ministers from having affairs.

“It needs a lot more than banning sex between ministers and their own staff.

“I would also look at drug use. I recall a situation where this affected one of Mr Turnbull’s own staff a few years ago and this remains a real issue, too” she said.

From a male perspective, former Labor minister and powerbroker Graham Richardson said one of his best lines on this topic is “absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it just makes the heart wander.”

“If you’re locked up in Canberra for long periods of time, particularly ministers, then you spend most of your life with your staff members and not with your family,” he said.

“It’s easy to understand how these things happen,” he said referring to Joyce and noting the problem was not the affair but the events that followed involving taxpayer entitlements.

“That’s where Barnaby has come astray,” he said.

Richo is not a huge fan of what he calls “Malcolm’s moralistic approach.”

“It can’t work. Ever since Adam and Eve there’s been sexual attraction and it won’t stop because the Ministerial Code said it should,” he says.

Joyce is overweight, red-faced and losing hair while photographs show Campion with long, loose hair and plenty of make-up.

Campion joined Joyce’s office in 2016 during the federal election campaign, and officially became his media adviser in August that year.

The Daily Telegraph published a photograph taken in November showing Joyce seeming to lust after Campion, as they sat side-by-side at a farming summit.

By the end of that year, it’s understood they were in a full-blown sexual relationship that was drawing attention from staff in Joyce’s office.

It became a talking point among Labor staff and journalists, too. Daily, they could be seen sharing a cigarette together in a courtyard near Joyce’s office, leaning towards each other, their body language comfortable and close as they chatted and fagged away.

There is nothing illegal in an affair.

But there is the potential for abuse of power, gender inequality and a highly inappropriate sexualised workplace environment in the very offices of those who legislate for all Australians. Instead of upholding the highest standards in the country, they are engaging in some of the most scandalous behaviour.

The affair between Campion and Joyce gave rise to a whole myriad of problems involving entitlements, proper process, use of taxpayer funds and special favours for his girlfriend.

An affair that led to chaos in his office, saw the resignation of his chief of staff and led to potential misuse of entitlements as his girlfriend was shuffled from office to office.

Affairs in politics are nothing new, as Turnbull said on Thursday.

“I know there are all sorts of stories about former ministers and former leaders and colourful tales that find their way into books,” he said.

This hearkens back to stories of the mistresses of Ben Chifley, Robert Menzies, Harold Holt, Bob Hawke and more.

But the culture of what is acceptable in workplaces has changed.

Insurance giant QBE’s chief executive John Neal lost a half a million dollars from his bonus for failing to disclose a liaison with his personal assistant. AFL executives Simon Lethlean and Richard Simkiss lost their jobs after affairs with young female staff members.

And Border Force boss Roman Quaedvlieg has been stood aside pending an investigation into accusations he helped get his girlfriend a job at Sydney Airport.

Turnbull is trying to bring Parliament into line with community expectations and the conduct of most corporate workplaces.

“I am saying that in these workplaces here, the Minister’s offices, Ministers must behave accordingly and they must not — I don’t care if they are married or single — they must not have sexual relations with their staff. That’s it,” he said.

But now, his attempt to set standards in Parliament has been seized on by the Nationals as a point of difference. A reason for a fight. Joyce has been Turnbull’s right-hand man, as leader of the Nationals party, and the pair celebrated together when Joyce won the New England by-election with a sizeable victory.

Now, their very partnership, and the Coalition agreement, is in crisis. All over an attempt to bring Canberra into line with standards expected by the rest of Australia.