Barnaby Joyce ‘deserved help, not humiliation’, says Vietnam veteran Dennis Callaghan

Dennis Callaghan – found bleeding in the gutter last year by Barnaby Joyce – says the MP carried him home, put him in bed and called him twice to check on his welfare.

Dennis Callaghan was helped by Barnaby Joyce after a fall. Picture: Jane Dempster

An elderly man “carried” home by Barnaby Joyce after being found bleeding and lying by the gutter has expressed disappointment no one helped the maverick politician last week when Mr Joyce was filmed lying on his back in a Canberra street swearing into his phone.

Dennis Callaghan, 77, told The Australian he was not previously a supporter of the former Nationals leader but his opinion changed in February last year when he experienced a bad fall in Canberra, after drinking one night, and knocked his head heavily on the pavement.

Mr Callaghan, a former Vietnam War veteran who was conscripted in 1967 and served as a rifleman in 3RAR, told The Australian Mr Joyce – wearing a dinner suit – came to his aid, with another man helped carry him home, put him in bed then rang twice to check on his welfare.

“Having had a meal in one of the local restaurants and a bottle of wine, and then a few rums … I was fairly well drunk, I suppose,” Mr Callaghan said.

“And I was walking home and when I got to the corner of the street I live in … I stumbled backwards, fell on my back and banged my head on the ground and was bleeding.

“Next thing, this bloke in a dinner suit picked me up and, with the aid of some other bloke, they effectively carried me back to my home about a hundred yards down the road.

“And Barnaby took me upstairs and put me on the bed. He went home and then a few hours later he phoned me back to see how I was going. And the next morning he phoned me again to see how I was.

“I’d been a bit disappointed in him, because he left his wife and kids for the other lady. Anyway this was all forgiven because … he couldn’t have been kinder.

“He had his dinner suit on. I don’t know if I spilt my blood on the damn thing.”

Mr Joyce, who did not contact The Australian to reveal the incident, confirmed the story and said Mr Callaghan was “lying in the gutter” and bleeding from the head while people were walking past him.

“He just seemed like a bloke that needed help,” Mr Joyce said.

He also said a man from the Royal Australian Air Force assisted him.

Mr Joyce has faced calls to leave politics following the incident last week, with the former Nationals leader telling colleagues he had an adverse reaction to alcohol because of medication he had been taking and was deeply embarrassed.

While he will retain his position in shadow cabinet, Nationals colleague Anne Webster warned his actions would hurt the party’s standing among women, while Labor backbencher Tania Lawrence likened Mr Joyce to Sir Les Patterson, Barry Humphries’ vulgar caricature of an Australian politician.

But Mr Callaghan – who previously worked at the Defence Department – expressed disappointment no one came to the Mr Joyce’s aid.

“He probably had a few drinks and he was sitting on a plant box or something, talking to his wife, and fell off. And instead of getting up he was lying there talking on the phone. That seemed OK to me. But it would have been nice for somebody to help him, wouldn’t it?”