Barnaby Joyce saga sends columnists into fulmination mode

Illustration: Jon Kudelka.

Author and Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons was, as always, asking the tough questions this week following The Daily Telegraph scoop that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was expecting a baby with his former media adviser, Vikki Campion.

“Just imagine the Deputy PM was an ALP female, and had become impregnated to a staffer a couple of decades her junior,” he said. “What then?”

But what, John, of her point - if the genders were reversed, and the Deputy PM was pregnant to a staffer 15 years her junior, had left the family home and the four children, would you say "Nothing to see here, folks, move on."? Would the commentariat? https://t.co/WN1COUlh50

— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) February 8, 2018

Interesting question, Fitz. This hypothetical female Deputy Prime Minister would be 50 years old, and the chances of her falling pregnant through natural conception at that age would be, to quote Dr John Zhang, the medical director of New Hope Fertility Centre in New York City, “like winning the lottery”. So yes, just imagine.

FitzSimons was not the only Fairfax columnist in fulmination mode these past few days. “If a newlywed Natalie Joyce could have foreseen how her beloved Barnaby was going to screw her over so spectacularly in years to come perhaps she would have made different choices,” said Kasey Edwards.

“A 50-year-old man leaving his wife to start again with a 33-year-old isn’t a love story,” said Clementine Ford, apparently privy to the parties’ pillow-talk. “It’s a midlife crisis.”

“Having sex with an employee is an abuse of power,” said her colleague and academic Jenna Price. “There should be repercussions.” Repercussions? Remember when feminists fiercely defended the right of a woman to sleep with whomever she wanted without judgment? Nowadays they more resemble the stern-faced party women of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the scarlet sash of the Anti-Sex League worn proudly around their waste.

While not condemnatory like some of her colleagues, Fairfax journalist Julia Baird, also author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians, was quick to call sexism. Had the genders been reversed, she said, “the story would have been pursued with great vigour and determination months ago.”

Really? If so, one might ask Baird whether she herself pursued the story earlier. If not, why not? As political editor Katharine Murphy of The Guardian pointed out, rumour without verification is not sufficient. During the New England by-election Murphy — who had heard the rumours — repeatedly questioned Joyce about aspects of his private life that might jeopardise his campaign, but he stonewalled.

Illustration: Jon Kudelka

In arguing that male politicians receive more favourable treatment than their female colleagues in this respect, Baird cites the case of former senator, leader of the Democrats, and ultimately Labor MP Cheryl Kernot. In 1997, Kernot spectacularly defected from the Democrats to Labor, in a move facilitated by then ALP Deputy Leader Gareth Evans. Interestingly, Baird expressly discourages use of the verb ‘defected’ in Kernot’s case, preferring the phrase “moved parties”.

Soon enough Labor’s star recruit — like many others of that calibre — turned to be a high profile liability. When the vote-counting at first looked unfavourable during her campaign for Dickson, Kernot publicly whined that Labor had not given her a safe seat. Repeatedly, she blamed others for her setbacks.

When she recontested Dickson in 2001 Kernot attempted to smear her Liberal opponent — a young Peter Dutton — by falsely implying his resignation from the Queensland police service was due to misconduct. In fact Dutton’s record was exemplary, as attested by favourable references from the then National Crime Authority, where Dutton had been seconded. Unsurprisingly, Kernot was forced to withdraw the slur and was soundly defeated in the election.

In 2002, following publication of Kernot’s biography Speaking for Myself Again: Four years with Labor and Beyond, journalist Laurie Oakes revealed that she and Evans had been having an affair at the time of her defection. Her book failed to mention the liaison — an omission that was crucial in Oakes’s decision to reveal it.

In criticising the treatment of Kernot, Baird stated there “was no actual proof of a causal connection between the bloom and decline of a love affair and Kernot’s professional and psychological slump.” There does not have to be. It was in the public interest for Oakes to run with the story, for reasons in addition to Kernot’s biographical omission. First, when asked during the ALP’s vetting process whether there was any secret that could embarrass herself or the party, she replied ‘no’.

Second, Kim Beazley, the Opposition Leader at the time of Kernot’s defection, strongly implied in 2002 that the party would not have accepted Kernot as a candidate had the affair been disclosed. Third, Evans had lied to Parliament in 1998 when asked by Liberal MP Don Randall whether Kernot’s “affection extended to the Member for Holt.” These rumours were, replied Evans, “totally baseless, [and] beneath contempt.”

Illustration: Jon Kudelka

As mentioned Baird was critical of the ‘delay’ in the media’s pursuit of the Joyce affair. However, she does not acknowledge this failure in the case of Kernot, whose five year affair with Evans began in 1994. It took eight years for the media to reveal it, despite Oakes and other journalists being aware for many years. Conversely, Campion joined Joyce’s staff in 2016, the affair being revealed only two years later. Could it not be argued that Kernot enjoyed a privilege that Joyce did not, particularly given her affair was not revealed until years after she left politics?

Still, Baird maintains that “when a prominent bloke strays it’s a cliche, and when a woman does it, it’s time to grab some popcorn.” Despite this claim, plenty of popcorn was grabbed in the case of former Whitlam Government Treasurer Jim Cairns, who had an affair with his assistant Juni Morosi. When the body of prominent bloke and former Liberal Opposition Leader Billy Snedden was found naked in a Sydney hotel room in 1987, the Sydney Morning Herald — Baird’s own newspaper — gleefully reported that the condom he was wearing “was loaded”.

The suggestion that male politicians enjoy preferential treatment in this coverage is also refuted by the numerous examples of them being unfairly smeared with sexual innuendo. Herald-Sun journalist Andrew Bolt noted this in 2013 along with examples including former prime ministers William McMahon and John Howard. Since then the media has repeated assertions that former prime minister Tony Abbott and his chief of staff Peta Credlin had an affair, despite there being no evidence of this.

Despite Joyce’s protests that his affair was a “private” matter, The Daily Telegraph was right to break the story. As a high profile politician, and especially given the allegations of nepotism, he cannot expect to escape this scrutiny. As for the denunciations and moral outrage in the coverage, that is another matter.

According to Australian Financial Review columnist Myriam Robin, a “Joyce’s transgressions, if all hold up, would show him to be a hypocritical, sleazy love rat.” Perhaps so. But can you imagine the reaction if the mainstream media described a female politician in such terms? Yet Baird seems to believe that it is only women who invite “the same kind of peculiar frenzy Julia Gillard did — a heated, uncontained and particularly nasty scrutiny …”

Headline of the day..... pic.twitter.com/0rdpkzWukr

— Sarah Hanson-Young🌈 (@sarahinthesen8) February 14, 2018

“Headline of the day,” chortled Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young as she tweeted her delight at the satirical Beetota Advocate front page ‘Deputy PM Under Siege After Revelations That He Also Rooted The Murray Darling.’ She has a hell of a sense of humour, doesn’t she? Not quite. In 2012 she initiated defamation action against magazine Zoo Weekly after it superimposed an image of her face on a lingerie model. “I sued Zoo Magazine because I believe it is important to stand up to sexism and I wanted to set a positive example to my daughter,” tweeted Hanson-Young in 2015, having forced the magazine to apologise. Presumably she is now teaching her daughter about double standards.

I sued Zoo Magazine because I believe it is important to stand up to sexism and I wanted to set a positive example to my daughter

— Sarah Hanson-Young🌈 (@sarahinthesen8) June 7, 2015

As for Joyce, he has, whether rightfully or wrongfully, been disgraced. He will be fortunate to retain his seat, let alone the Deputy Prime Minister’s job. Despite this Baird claims that his status as a male politician is such that he enjoys a “remarkable privilege” in this affair. If so, plenty of us have great difficulty in recognising it.