Malcolm Turnbull memoir: Bonk ban to stymie idea ‘MPs were screwing staff’

Malcolm Turnbull had to counsel several married ministers in his government for hanging around in Canberra bars with young women.

Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Picture: Toby Zerna

Malcolm Turnbull reveals he had to counsel several married ministers in his government for hanging around in Canberra bars with young women after lamenting that many of them regarded it as acceptable to sleep with their staff.

The reflections of the former prime minister include claims his deputy, Barnaby Joyce, lied over an affair with staffer Vikki Campion that led to the “bonk ban” in 2017 outlawing sexual relationships between ministers and staff.

Mr Turnbull says he confronted Mr Joyce after being alerted to the impending publication of his indiscretion after an investigation by The Daily Telegraph’s Sharri Markson. He says he had been given an assurance by Mr Joyce that he was not having a sexual relationship with Ms Campion. Mr Joyce yesterday said he recalled the conversation and believed he was not obliged to answer questions of a highly personal nature.

“If it was something personal, as if I was going to tell him,” he said. “There are personal questions you are not obliged to answer … like do you masturbate.”

Mr Turnbull says many ministers resisted the “bonk ban” with the exception of Scott Morrison and Christopher Pyne, and he couldn’t understand ministers believed being in the company of young staffers in bars wasn’t going to get noticed, or not form a perception politicians were using taxpayer money “boozing and screwing their staff”.