Barnaby Joyce reveals he’s engaged to Vikki Campion

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has revealed the personal way he popped the question to partner Vikki Campion.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said he was down on both knees “saying prayers” when he popped the question to partner Vikki Campion on Sunday.

Mr Joyce called in to Sunrise on Tuesday morning to reconfirm that the pair were now engaged after he asked her to marry him with a Parti Sapphire ring at a restaurant in Coffs Harbour.

He said he had hoped to pop the question while on holiday at Noosa, but couldn’t get a booking at a “nice restaurant”.

“ (Vikki) went to the bathroom and I told the guys at the restaurant ‘I’m going to propose and if this works out well, it’s going to be real nice’,” he said.

“If it doesn’t, I will join you at the bar for about a day.”

Mr Joyce said he had waited for “most” fellow diners to leave “in case she said no”.

“I pretended to knock the phone off the table and got down to pick it up, and rather than being down on one knee, I ended up being down on two – I was saying my prayers,” he said.

Mr Joyce said he had gone public with the news on Monday after telling the rest of the family, which he said had gone “as one would have expected”.

“Some are happy, and some are understandably not as happy,” he said.

The couple share two children, three-year-old Sebastian and Thomas, aged two.

Mr Joyce said the boys “couldn’t give a stuff”, and had instead returned to talking about dinosaurs when they were told the news.

While Mr Joyce joked about having the wedding “the Saturday of the election”, the big day is unlikely to be until after the campaign.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce with his partner Vikki Campion and their children, Sebastian and Thomas. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Joyce, 54, stood down from his high-profile role as the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of The National Party in early 2018 after news of his affair with ex-staffer Ms Campion was first made public in The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Joyce’s 24-year marriage to wife Natalie ended in the wake of the scandal.

But he was then re-elected in 2021, after a leadership spill ousted Michael McCormack from the role.

“I acknowledge my faults and I resigned as I should have and I did. I’ve spent three years on the backbench and, you know, I hope I come back a better person,” he said after the successful challenge.

After the affair with Ms Campion first became public, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Mr Joyce’s behaviour as a “a shocking error of judgment”.

“I think we know that the real issue is the terrible hurt and humiliation that Barnaby by his conduct, has visited on his wife, Natalie and their daughters and indeed, his new partner,” he said at the time.

Vikki Campion said yes when Barnaby Joyce proposed. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“Barnaby made a shocking error of judgment in having an affair with a young woman working in his office. In doing so, he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us.”

Since then Ms Campion has spoken out about the situation she was in when she was pregnant.

“At the time, I was jobless, heavily pregnant, distressed, effectively living out of my car and AirBnBs booked by my brother, with a prepaid phone,” she wrote in her column for The Saturday Telegraph.