Barnaby’s $150k TV deal an insult to Australians
BARNABY Joyce’s decision to sell his love story for a whopping $150,000, after months of objecting to scrutiny, sets a dangerous precedent. Politicians are accountable to the public who both elect and fund them, writes Sharri Markson.
Opinion
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BARNABY Joyce’s decision to sell his love story for a whopping $150,000, after months of objecting to scrutiny, sets a dangerous precedent.
Politicians are accountable to the public who both elect and fund them. Under no circumstances, should politicians be charging money before they agree to answer questions from journalists.
It is an abuse of our democratic process, a system that relies on a strong and free press.
Taxpayers have funded Joyce’s salary for 13 years, paying him close to $3 million since he first entered parliament.
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Our taxes have also funded his free air travel around the country, and at times the world, and his accommodation in luxury hotels.
As Deputy Prime Minister he was paid $400,000 a year and now, as a vocal backbencher, Joyce is on $200,000 — a salary most Australians could only dream about.
Yet Joyce feels so in touch with Aussie battlers he is writing a book about voters in weatherboard and iron houses.
The public expect transparency and accountability from Joyce — particularly as he occupied one of the most senior positions in the Federal Government, that of Deputy Prime Minister.
But Joyce was anything but transparent when it came to his affair with his former media adviser Vikki Campion and the legitimate questions surrounding their use of entitlements.
Investigating the stories that Campion secured newly-created jobs in the offices of two of Joyce’s allies, Matt Canavan and Damian Drum, was extraordinarily difficult.
The reactions of Joyce, Canavan and Drum to my questions about why Campion was given new jobs over other candidates, and the process that those appointments followed, ranged from reluctance to downright refusal to answer.
Canavan still hasn’t disclosed the nature of the conversations he had with the then Nationals leader in the lead-up to his decision to install his boss’s girlfriend in the brand-new job of social media adviser in his office. It was a job that didn’t exist before or after Canavan employed Campion.
Joyce was not upfront about these matters when we were pursuing it. He complained to Leigh Sales, Fairfax journalists and anyone who would listen that his love affair was a private matter that should stay private.
The couple apparently felt so strongly about it that, a month before their son Sebastian was born, when most couples are buying cots and prams and nappies, Campion went to the trouble of lodging a complaint with the Australian Press Council claiming our first story breached her privacy.
This complaint has now been laid bare for its hypocrisy.
I’m sorry, but you can’t pursue a complaint about the unfair breach of your privacy while selling an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at your home life to the highest bidder — in this case Channel 7’s Sunday Night program.