Vikki Campion calls for unnamed cabinet minister to quit over leaked text saga

Barnaby Joyce’s fiancee, Vikki Campion, has called for the cabinet minister who leaked texts calling the PM a “psycho” to quit.

Former political adviser Vikki Campion has called for the for the cabinet minister who leaked texts calling Prime Minister Scott Morrison a “psycho” to quit.

In an op-ed for The Daily Telegraph, Ms Campion called the unnamed minister a “coward” and demanded they either apologise or leave the cabinet.

Leaked text messages between former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and unnamed cabinet minister were made public this week, where she called Mr Morrison a “horrible, horrible person” and the mystery MP who leaked the messages called him a “fraud” and a “complete psycho”.

Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Barnaby Joyce, Vikki Campion and their children. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Additional text messages revealed by Network 10 saw Ms Berejiklian accuse the PM of being obsessed with “petty political point scoring” during the Black Summer bushfires.

In another sent while the Prime Minister was on holiday in Hawaii as the deadly disaster unfolded, Ms Berejiklian wrote she was “so disappointed and gutted”.

The former premier told the unnamed minister Mr Morrison was “actively spreading lies” about her.

They responded: “Desperate and jealous.”

Ms Campion questioned how much “gossip” Ms Berejiklian would have to continue to endure after stepping down as premier last year.

Ms Campion called the unnamed minister a ‘coward’. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

“The coward cabinet minister, who hid behind anonymity while further hurting a woman who has had the entrails of her private life exposed, should publicly apologise or leave the cabinet – and its leader he demeans as a ‘complete psycho’,” she said.

“To be a backbencher and hold a particular view is one thing, but to be bound by cabinet solidarity and swear allegiance to the executive and wilfully divulge a personal belief that denigrates the Prime Minister breaches convention.”

Ms Campion branded the unnamed minister a “gutless self-serving Liberal apparatchik” and branded the decision to leak the texts, likely sent in the heat of the moment, a “cold, calculated action”.

“It is one thing to leak your thoughts, but another entirely to reveal someone else’s messages to the media, not to expose public rorting or corruption or crime, but to inflict reputational damage and bring down another person in the collateral,” she wrote.

Her comments come as her fiance, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, is embroiled in his own embarrassing text leak, in which he called Mr Morrison a “hypocrite and a liar”.

Mr Joyce proposed to Ms Campion last month, four years after their headline-making affair while she was his political staffer.

The couple share two children together, Sebastian and Thomas.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says he offered to quit his role. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Jeremy Piper

In March of last year, during the furore that erupted over Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation, Mr Joyce sent a text to a third party describing Mr Morrison as a “hypocrite and a liar”.

The text message in question, obtained by news.com.au, began with the words “tell BH”, a reference to Ms Higgins.

“I and Scott, he is Scott until I recognise his office, don’t get along,” Mr Joyce wrote.

“He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time. I have never trusted him and I dislike how he earnestly rearranges the truth to a lie.”

The Nationals leader “unreservedly apologised” to the Prime Minister just hours before the story broke on Friday, with Mr Morrison saying he had accepted Mr Joyce’s apology.

Mr Joyce fronted the media in Sydney on Saturday morning, revealing he had offered his resignation to the Prime Minister.

“He accepted my apology. I offered my resignation and he did not accept my resignation,” Mr Joyce said.

“And that in itself is a statement of a person of greater character. That is not one of a person of any form of vindictiveness … or a sense of retribution.”

Earlier in the week, Mr Joyce also lashed out at the unnamed cabinet minister who leaked the texts with Ms Berejiklian, calling on the person to “out themselves”.

“I would suggest that if you know anything about this don’t wait to be outed, out yourself,” he said.

“And give an explanation.

“Maybe it was a bad day in the office, I don’t know. That’s a better way to do it.”