$150k for a friendly chat and no answers
CHANNEL 7’s tell-all with Barnaby Joyce was both compelling and excruciating. But it failed to deliver any substantive answers to the questions Joyce has been hiding from ever since we first broke the news of his love child with Vikki Campion.
Opinion
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THEY’RE the questions that $150,000 does not get you answers to.
Channel 7’s tell-all with Barnaby Joyce was both compelling and excruciating. But it failed to deliver any substantive answers to the questions Joyce has been hiding from ever since we first broke the news of his love child with Vikki Campion.
Sunday Night avoided asking tough questions in the public interest. Instead, there were queries about whether Sebastian’s birth was easy and whether Joyce does his bit changing dirty nappies.
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Well, how about asking whether Joyce applied pressure to two National MPs reporting to him, Matt Canavan and Damian Drum, to employ his girlfriend in newly-created jobs?
Or, why is Campion objecting to Freedom of Information requests about their use of taxpayer-funded entitlements to travel the country? And what unfolded during the conversation when Joyce assured Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that his relationship with his former media adviser was over?
And there was not one question about their free rental from a National Party donor or the claim of sexual harassment from a Western Australian woman.
Former Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie last night said: “Democracy only survives and prospers if journalism is fair but fearless. Tonight’s soft Channel 7 story on Barnaby fails that test.”
He is right.
This was the highest paid chequebook journalism deal struck by a sitting politician, and Channel 7 repeatedly let Joyce off the hook.
The network did not hold him to account.
Remember, it was Joyce’s point-blank refusal to respond to questions about his affair with Campion over a four-month period that led us to take a photograph of her at seven-months pregnant walking across the street.
