Floppy Canavan faces stiff questions over Campion’s employment

Last July was an exceptionally busy time for the Nationals’ rising star, Matt Canavan, and his boss, Barnaby Joyce.

Over the course of a week, from July 18, Canavan discovered from his mother that he might be a dual citizen. He immediately phoned Joyce, party leader, close friend and mentor, with the shattering news he might be ineligible as an MP. On July 25, Canavan resigned from cabinet.

Joyce roared to the rescue that week, calling Canavan an exemplary person.

But Joyce also had another important issue going on in Canavan’s office during that busy time. His former staffer Vikki Campion had been hired by Canavan three months earlier after staff “dysfunction” in Joyce’s own office. In July, Campion fell pregnant with Joyce’s baby, due mid-April.

During the week Canavan stood down from cabinet, journalists covering the story dealt with a string of media advisers and were referred back and forth from Canavan’s office to Joyce’s office ­— because once Canavan quit cabinet, his staff allowance collapsed.

Fortuitously, amid the chaos, Campion remained employed. She rotated to work for Nationals whip Damian Drum. Two weeks ago, Drum conceded he had heard rumours of an affair but thought it was over when he gave Campion (by then pregnant) a job in August.

The question of what Canavan knew and when he knew it will go to the heart of questions in Senate estimates this week.

Given his close relationship with Joyce since 2010 when he was Joyce’s chief of staff, it stretches credulity to accept that Canavan knew nothing of the affair when he took Campion on staff.

Canavan faced the prospect last year of watching his political career flame out in the dual-citizenship fiasco. He is now caught up in another fiasco and certain to face more pressure in the “Vikki Campion jobs” probe. Labor’s agenda on this is simple: if Canavan knew, then when was the Prime Minister told?

Canavan looked more than a little anxious when questioned by Sky News’s David Speers last Monday. Speers asked: “Did you know she was having an affair with Barnaby Joyce?”

Canavan responded: “Absolutely no idea.” Looking and sounding flustered, he went on to say Campion was the only person interviewed for the job. Barnaby was “a very personal, ah, a very private person, um … Miss Campion got the job on the skills and experience she has,” he said.

“When did you find out?” Speers asked. Canavan stumbled on, sounding like a man buying time: “Well, um, again, it’s, you know, I, I, never really knew, I suppose, until, until all of this stuff came out.”

Speers pressed: “But he hadn’t spoken to you about this?”

Canavan sounded floppy. “Well, it’s a matter for him to explain. I’m not going into those sorts of conversations.”

Questions ahead for Canavan include whether his close friend Joyce suggested hiring Campion, and whether Canavan asked for references, given the new staffer came straight from the boss’s office.