Piers Akerman: PM Malcolm Turnbull needs to stay home to save the Coalition

THE crisis created by what should have been a private family breakdown in the wake of National Party leader Barnaby Joyce’s affair has broadened into all-out civil war. And PM Malcolm Turnbull now needs to stay home to save his government, Piers Akerman writes.

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull will have to skip his visit to the US this week if he wants to save the Coalition and his government.

The crisis created by what should have been a private family breakdown in the wake of National Party leader Barnaby Joyce’s affair with staffer Vikki Campion has broadened into all-out civil war.

Joyce’s unfaithfulness to his wife Natalie is not admirable but the virtue-signalling sanctimonious preaching from Turnbull was over-the-top — nauseating, actually — and ­undoubtedly designed to play to the frenzied feminists who have weaponised the #metoo crusade since it emerged in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal late last year.

That campaign, which sought to expose sexual predators in the workplace, has now morphed into a virulent anti-male movement.

PM Malcolm Turnbull needs to stay in Australia instead of going to the United States to deal with the Joyce fallout, Piers Akerman writes. Picture: Kym Smith

Turnbull has pandered, again, to the politics of the soft-left as he scrambles to ascend to the moral high ground.

Joyce, as leader of the ­Nationals, has let his supporters down. Of that there is no doubt. But the Nationals have been lambasted in the past for their conservative values, family values, and that is why he has fallen so far in the eyes of many in rural Australia.

However, were it not for the Nationals and their conservative values during the last election, and the support those values had in regional electorates, there would be no Turnbull government.

The Liberal Party, since Turnbull white-anted Tony Abbott, has moved as relentlessly toward the centre left as the Labor Party has moved ­towards the far left occupied by the Greens.

The Turnbull government’s enthusiastic embrace of the crumbling global-warming theory and its support for ­inefficient alternative energy sources has presided over staggering increases in power ­prices, which have seen major businesses forced to close so scarce and ever more rapidly diminishing electricity can be rationed and diverted to domestic consumers.

Barnaby Joyce has had a public sparring match with PM Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: Michael Masters/Getty Images

While those in inner-urban electorates, far from primary industry or the forests and pristine reefs they champion, dictate both Liberal and Labor policies in line with their Green armbands, the Nationals have fought to keep the lights on, fought to keep manufacturing alive, and fought for the exports that fuel the economy.

The contrast between their concentration on policies that really matter and the preoccupation of the Liberal and Labor policies with such issues as homosexual marriage could not be starker.

This week, Turnbull and wife Lucy are to feature on a popular television program talking about their marriage. There is absolutely no evidence the Turnbull marriage is at all shaky. What is shaky is Turnbull’s political judgment.

His revision of the Ministerial Code of Conduct on Thursday to include a ban on sex between ministers and their staffers is the sort of adolescent kneejerk response that has become the norm from this Prime Minister.

“Now, Barnaby knows he made that shocking error of judgment,” Turnbull preached.

“He is taking leave next week and I have encouraged him to take that leave. He needs that time to reflect. He needs that time to seek forgiveness and understanding from his wife and girls. He needs to make a new home for his partner and their baby.”

But did Turnbull need to clamber into the political pulpit to deliver this message? No. Nor is a public lecture part of mateship, and wasn’t Barnaby Malcolm’s best mate when he jumped on stage to wallow in the acclaim when Joyce ­reclaimed New England in ­December?

Nor was the code of conduct deficient. Adults are elected to parliament and the electorate is entitled to judge them as adults — with all the human frailties that all but Turnbull seem to be aware of.

He, however, with those feminists firmly in mind, could not help himself when he ­described the code as lacking.

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

Oh, no, Turnbull’s straying into the minefield sown by the left of gender identity politics. Perhaps he has his eye on the upcoming Mardi Gras festival romping through his Wentworth electorate next weekend when the most promiscuous group in our society will again demonstrate their contempt for the family values he championed last week.

With his ban on affairs ­between ministers and staff (and I doubt there were ever as many as some of the commentariat have salaciously claimed) how soon before Turnbull launches his thought police squad from the Ministry of Love to spy on members of his Cabinet?

There is really no tide in the affairs of men and women when they are swept up by the tempestuous currents of love, as every romantic knows.

There are, however, responsibilities and it is the sense of ­responsibility that Joyce has breached, but this should be of no concern unless he misappropriated public money while engaged in his unfaithful ­behaviour. Of this, there has been no evidence.

The media has not overstepped the mark in revealing the Joyce-Campion affair, it just took too long to do so, but when the initial informant is the bitter and defeated Joyce rival Tony Windsor, wariness should always be the rule.

Now the truly inept Turnbull has to rebuild the accord with the party that kept him in government.

Joyce has sought forgiveness from his family for the hurt he has caused. Compassion must also be shown to Campion, carrying her first child. Pregnancy should be a joy, the impending birth should be a matter for celebration, not recrimination.

Turnbull needs to find some maturity to deal with this issue or the stench will only intensify.