The sanctimony of the left could ultimately save Joyce

HOLDING the deputy prime minister to account is important but there’s no need to keep kicking a dog when he’s down, writes Miranda Devine.

BEING dubbed the “Bonking Beetroot” and becoming a national figure of derision is pretty much what Barnaby Joyce deserves for getting his staffer pregnant and leaving his wife and four children.

But the sanctimonious left-wing pile-on this week is so over-the top and hypocritical, it has provoked a backlash of community support for the embattled deputy prime minister.

You know you’ve jumped the shark when disgraced former Labor Senator Sam Dastyari is ranting on that he quit parliament for a “lot less”.

Seriously, a senator who had a Chinese donor pay off a personal debt, who warned another Chinese donor his phone might be tapped by government agencies, who sanctioned Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea at a press conference with his benefactors, comparing himself to Barnaby Joyce and his sticky marital troubles?

Give me a break.

The ongoing attack upon Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is coming from those in glass houses. (Pic: Mick Tsikas)

And when you have vicious Tony Windsor, Barnaby’s vanquished political enemy in New England, stirring the pot, you know the frenzy has gone too far

Windsor’s former chief adviser, John Clements, who’s been spreading dirt, was comprehensively trounced on strategy and tactics during the 2016 election by his opposite number in Barnaby’s office, Vikki Campion, 33, who, of course, is the pregnant staffer at the centre of this saga.

It doesn’t take much inside knowledge to detect the desperate tang of vengeance from the Windsor camp.

As for those oh-so-upright sections of the media who tut-tut at The Daily Telegraph for breaking the story they now salivate over, no one buys their solemn attempts to elevate it into some sort of Watergate scandal involving misused taxpayer funds.

That’s just a fig leaf for their prurience to allow them to publish over and over the Telegraph front pages they condemn.

The “funds misuse” beat-up is also being used as a proxy weapon by Labor and others who want to destabilise the Turnbull government, to avoid being accused of throwing stones in glass houses (and boy, are there a lot of glass houses.)

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The fact is that Vikki Campion was an elite operator who any minister would kill to have as media adviser.

Barnaby would have been sorry, from a professional point of view, to lose her from his office.

He had had to fight hard to steal her from then NSW Nationals Leader Troy Grant. That’s how good she was at her job.

But they had slept together, his wife knew about it, and he was trying to put his marriage back together. That was what was going on last April, when Vikki moved to Matt Canavan’s office.

A man trying to revive his marriage after an affair hardly wants the temptation of the lovelorn former mistress remaining in his office. Nor, quite obviously, does the wife.

Yet this is what the baying Lilliputians trying to bring down the deputy prime minister insist is a capital offence.

He had three options. Keep her in his office: untenable.

Sack her: You can’t sack a staffer because you’ve slept with her. Imagine the justified #metoo crucifixion.

Or find a job for a talented staffer with another minister.

Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce are said to be expecting their first child together in April. (Pic: John Grainger)

Vikki had to interview for the job, and no one suggests she didn’t get it on merit. I have seen her pay slip for the fortnight March 23 to April 5 last year, and her salary was some $60,000 less than the figure that has been published in the media, or $35,000 less if you add maximum overtime.

It is true her salary rose by 3.5 per cent when she moved to Canavan’s office as social media advisor, but she then took a pay cut of almost the same magnitude when she moved to Damien Drum’s office after Canavan had to step aside pending a High Court determination of his citizenship eligibility.

If you remember at the time, Barnaby, his deputy Fiona Nash and Canavan were all caught in the citizenship drama and all the staff from their offices had to be warehoused with other National MPs until the mess was sorted out.

So when she moved from Canavan to Drum’s office, Vikki was being treated like any other staff member.

Campion moved from Joyce’s office to Matt Canavan’s. (Pic: Shae Beplate)

Campion worked for Damien Drum before leaving politics altogether. (Pic: supplied)

It’s extraordinary that so-called feminists now characterise her as an airhead given grace and favour jobs by her boyfriend.

The Nationals have an allocation of 80 staffers and they are free to distribute them among MPs as they wish. Vikki’s employment remained within the envelope, so it is untrue to say a job was “created” for her.

Barnaby explained the timeline of the affair yesterday in a grim media statement which ought to put to rest at least some of the criticism.

“My marriage was under pressure for some time, Natalie and I tried to make it work again in April last year but it subsequently came to an end. I take responsibility for that failure.”

He also made the public apology to his wife and daughters which he should have made last week instead of doing a car crash interview on the ABCs 730 program that wiser heads warned him against.

Barnaby has to answer to his own conscience. But objectively he’s been a great leader for the Nationals and rural and regional Australia is booming on his watch. He should probably go on extended and immediate leave, to make amends in his personal life, and not step in as acting prime minister when Malcolm Turnbull heads to Washington next week.

But the Nationals would be mad to dump him, as the letters of support flooding into Nationals MPs offices attest.

John wrote: “Barnaby, you’re a legend. You’re a straight, white, non-Muslim male, just like me. What you do in your own time is none of my business ... Please be assured that you have my full support.”

Meanwhile Bev wrote: “Stay strong Mr Joyce, not all of us need to pry into your private life. As the good old Australian saying goes “Don’t let the bast ... get you down.”

Australians don’t like kicking a dog when it’s down.

Originally published as The sanctimony of the left could ultimately save Joyce