Barnaby Joyce opens up on depression and ‘mistakes’ made amid scandal
FORMER deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has revealed his battle with alcohol, womanising and suffering from depression before leaving his ex-wife Natalie for his staffer Vikki Campion.
National
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FORMER deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has opened up about the depths of the depression he felt amid a scandal that saw his marriage of 24 years fall apart after an affair with a staffer led to the subsequent birth of their baby son.
In a new interview to discuss the release of his new book Weatherboard & Iron, Mr Joyce said he even contemplated dying.
“I wanted to go without anybody knowing,” he told Fairfax Media.
“When I was at home I was a lie, and when I was in Canberra I was ashamed,” he reportedly writes in the book.
Mr Joyce also opened up about the breakdown of his marriage to ex-wife Natalie and that he spent years in Canberra “wandering and getting closer to other women” before beginning a romantic relationship with ex-staffer, Vikki Campion.
Mr Joyce said his wife Natalie had reportedly “demanded, with our relationship in serious trouble, that I seek help”.
“Winston Churchill had his black dog: mine was a half-crazed cattle dog, biting everything that came near the yard,” the publication reports.
“But the downside comes as well, when you get sad in the afternoon because it’s the afternoon and there are not enough clouds in the sky …
“When you stop thinking about how sad it will be when you have gone, to thinking, I have hurt so many that I want to go without anybody knowing.”
Mr Joyce also reportedly speaks of getting help from a psychiatrist so as not to plummet further “into darkness”.
He told the publication that friends became even more concerned over an interview he gave the Sydney Morning Herald when he suggested that he might not be the biological father to son, Sebastian, in the weeks before Ms Campion gave birth.
Joyce called the comments a “terrible mistake”.
“Somehow I thought that creating doubt by not having all the details might switch this frenzy off,” he reportedly writes in the book. “You are not logical when under intense pressure for weeks.”
Joyce has reportedly dedicated the book to “my beloved daughters and son”.
“I wish I could have given you a life outside the spotlight I turned on. I wanted the best for you but was blinded in the glare of the exertion.”
And to Ms Campion, “my at times, typist, editor, critic and ever-patient partner, sitting tortured behind her keyboard trying to make sense of me.”
Today, Mr Joyce said the book was designed to be a discussion about regional Australians and an insider look at politics in Canberra, rather than a personal memoir.
“If I called it a book of ‘agricultural policy in Australia’ I don’t think it would sell many copies,” he said.
“There has to be a personal story that is meshed with that. But I don’t want it to be about a personal story, I want it to be about a statement about how we drive people ahead.”
Mr Joyce also said he felt compelled to speak out about his experience with depression, and asking for help, particularly during a drought when farmers were struggling.
He said it wasn’t weak for anyone struggling to ask for help.
The Nationals MP also thanked his mates for encouraging him to seek help.
“Mates around you will always tell you if you need to go and say g’day to someone,” he said. “I was very lucky I had them.”
Speaking outside a forum with farmers today, Mr Joyce also said he wanted the Nationals investigation into the sexual harassment claim against him to be over as quickly as possible.
It comes after the West Australian woman who made the complaint, Catherine Marriott, last month spoke out about her frustration that the party had not dealt with the inquiry in a timely manner.
Mr Joyce reiterated today that he rejected the allegations as “spurious and defamatory“.
“I want it out of the way as quickly as possible,” he said.
“Of all of the things that annoyed me in my political career, that one annoyed me the most.”
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