Samantha Maiden: Man up, Barnaby — you could have handled this better
Samantha Maiden argues the Deputy PM should have done the gentlemanly thing and managed the whole thing to save his new partner, wife and four daughters the public scrutiny.
Opinion
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WHEN Barnaby Joyce attended the Mid Winter ball with his much-admired wife Natalie in June last year, journalists who had heard the rumours the couple had separated had pause for thought.
She looked beautiful in a strapless gown. He wore black tie, a smile and carried a stock whip.
Perhaps it was just the usual scuttlebutt around in Canberra and the happy couple were still hitched? It was really nobody’s business.
Months later, when Joyce confirmed his separation, a Turnbull government staffer expressed joy that the press gallery had noticed Natalie’s attendance.
“Thank God! We worked for weeks to get her to come!,’’ he boasted.
This is the grim reality of the work of a modern media spinner it would appear. Mrs Joyce is much loved in Canberra for her dignity and her guts.
It worked quite well. For a while, until his new partner Vikki Campion turned up on the front page of The Daily Telegraph pregnant.
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In the wake of that photograph, an unedifying debate has erupted over what the media knew and why it didn’t report the Deputy Prime Minister’s baby news.
“Is this in the public interest? And if so, why has it taken such a long time for this story to break?,’’ asked The Australian’s Caroline Overington.
Let me tell you. For starters, the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was not commenting as is entirely his right. Then, there’s this thing called defamation laws.
The media couldn’t stand it up. If they could, after lodging dozens of freedom of information law requests searching for evidence of travel rorts, they would have published it. They couldn’t find any.
His new partner, former Daily Telegraph journalist Vikki Campion, repeatedly said all the wild rumours were untrue.
Oh well, that’s her prerogative too I suppose. Good luck to her and congratulations to her on one of life’s great experiences: her first baby.
Media organisations however can hardly publish a rumour because people are saying on Twitter that the Deputy PM is separated, married, or dating a unicorn for that matter.
Truth is, the suggestion that everyone in the media knew Mr Joyce was expecting a baby during the by-election is simply a lie.
But once The Daily Telegraph confirmed the deputy prime minister, 50, was having a baby with his former staffer, 33, the suggestion this information should be suppressed from the public is a joke.
Can you imagine the US media finding out the US Vice President and social conservative had broken up with his wife and was having a baby?
Should we not report NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s baby bump?
Mrs Joyce’s wife, Natalie also made clear today her own views on the matter. It’s for her to comment on those matters, not others.
Voters can make their own minds up about whether they care, or not.
Some critics have suggested Joyce needed to be exposed because of his traditional views that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Personally, the idea Barnaby Joyce needed to be “exposed” because he opposed same sex marriage is a bit rich.
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The Deputy Prime Minister had the self awareness to declare he was “not a saint’’ and he was separated from his wife during the same sex marriage debate.
The argument that just because he is opposed to gays and lesbians getting married that his divorce is fair game is wrong.
More troubling for my money was the constant cranking out of stories during the by-election that Mr Joyce was the subject of a “smear” or that Labor was trying to attack him with a dirty tricks campaign, that bullets were left at a school.
The local police I spoke to at the time were less than impressed that story made its way into the national media. Was the Coalition using it to get public sympathy and scare journalists off the rumours?
Finally, some have suggested it was wrong to photograph a vulnerable pregnant woman in her running shorts.
Really? She looks great.
But it would have been more gentlemanly in my opinion for the Deputy PM and his media team to manage this situation for his new partner, his wife and his four daughters.
They were offered many, many opportunities to release the information in a controlled way. They chose not to.
Yes it’s private. But he is a public figure.
Controlling how his happy baby news got into the public domain was not something beyond the powers of the second most powerful politician in the land.
Sometimes men really do need to man up, for once, to ensure the important women in their lives are treated with dignity.
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