Vikki Campion leaps to Barnaby Joyce’s defence after fall
Vikki Campion has spoken out after her husband was filmed lying on the ground on a Canberra street | VIDEO
Vikki Campion says she is “disappointed” that the passer-by who filmed her husband, Barnaby Joyce, lying on the ground and muttering a profanity on a Canberra street failed to check if the Nationals MP needed help.
Ms Campion, a former staffer to Mr Joyce, said the person who took the video saw the opposition veterans’ affairs spokesman fall off a planter box while engaged in a conversation on the phone to her, but neglected to do the “Australian thing” and stop and render assistance.
The video appears to show Mr Joyce lying on his back on a street in Braddon with his tie askew while mumbling “dead f..k c..t” into his phone, unaware of the passer-by taking the footage.
Mr Joyce admitted the video was “embarrassing” but insisted he had been directing the colourful language at himself after he took the tumble.
“I was walking back to my accommodation after parliament rose at 10pm,” he said.
“While on the phone, I sat on the edge of a plant box, fell over, and kept talking on the phone, and very animatedly was referring to myself for having fallen over.
“I got up and walked home”.
Ms Campion confirmed Mr Joyce’s use of profanity had not been directed at her.
She said her husband had hurt himself in the incident but “didn’t make a big deal about it”, while slamming the passer-by who had callously walked past.
“On the number of occasions I’ve been with him when he’s found people in a similar situation he’s gone out of his way to go and help them,” she said.
“One was in Canberra with a man who had appeared passed out behind the car and he got him, put him into the car and took him home. Everyone else is just walking past him. Barnaby is the one who stops, picks him up … puts him into his car and takes him home.
“On another occasion there was a patient walking around disoriented … and the same thing, he picked him up, put him in his car and took him up to the hospital.
“It’s the Australian thing to do, isn’t it?”.
The video of Mr Joyce was filmed on popular Canberra restaurant strip Lonsdale Street late on Wednesday, traditionally the night politicians and staffers hit the pub to blow off steam during a busy sitting week.
Ms Campion and the Nationals frontbencher tied the knot in a “bush bash”-themed ceremony on the Joyce property in regional NSW in November last year.
The pair – who have two sons together – donned matching Akubras for the nuptials and Ms Campion wore a bold pair of black, knee-high cowboy boots.
The political power couple’s relationship had rocky beginnings, after they made headlines in 2018 after it was revealed Ms Campion, his former media adviser, was pregnant.
The pair had just moved in together and were reported to be “madly in love” following the breakdown of Mr Joyce’s 25-year marriage.
More Coverage
Firefighters battle out-of-control blaze in national park
Campers and residents around a national park in Victoria’s west are being urged to leave, as firefighters battle a bushfire ignited by dry lightning strikes as temperatures topped 40C.
PM’s Newspoll fall is slow and steady
While Anthony Albanese has avoided something that befell all his predecessors in the past three decades, he has suffered a seemingly inexorable decline in support.