Barnaby Joyce and his partner, Vikki Campion, have reportedly sold the story of their relationship to the Seven Network for $150,000, with the interview to air on the Sunday Night program, months after appealing for privacy and telling the media to “move on”.

His colleagues have declined to comment on the ethics of a politician accepting money for interviews but the human services minister, Michael Keenan, says he would never do such a thing.

An industry insider has told News Corp the money from the interview will be held in a trust for Barnaby’s six-week-old son, Sebastian.

“The baby’s parents have no say in it and cannot access it,” the insider said. “Lawyers ultimately get to decide if it should be accessed for the child’s education or if it will go to the child as a lump sum when he gets to 18 or possibly older.”

Joyce will have to declare the money on the parliamentary register of members’ interests.

Joyce, who urged the media to “move on” in an unpaid interview with Fairfax in February, was forced to resign to the backbench as a result of the relationship.

Seven’s Sunday Night program reportedly won in a bidding war with the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes to secure the exclusive interview.

On Sunday Keenan was asked if he thought it was acceptable for politicians to be accepting money for interviews and he said he did not want to talk about it.

“Well it’s not something that I’ve done and I won’t do it,” he told Sky News. “It’s a matter for Barnaby ... I’m not going to add to the commentary around it.”

He said the Joyce affair had been a distraction for the Turnbull government earlier this year “and we obviously don’t want to revisit that”.

“I’m not going to have a running commentary on a colleague in a public way. If there’s something that I would say to him, I would say it to him in private.”

Bridget McKenzie, the deputy leader of the National Party, when asked if she thought if was acceptable for Joyce to accept $150,000 for a story on his family, said she did not want to comment on what her colleagues “do in their private time”.

“That’s a matter for Vikki and Barnaby,” she told the ABC. “People write memoirs all the time. Politicians tell their stories in a variety of ways throughout their careers. I don’t think it’s up to me to be making commentary on the morality of that or otherwise.”

Greg Hunt, the health minister, said he did not want to comments on Joyce’s decision either.

“You and I are here for the love of it and I will let the individual concerned comment on his own circumstances,” he said during his interview with the ABC’s Barrie Cassidy.

Joyce indicated late in 2017 that he had split from his wife and mother of his four daughters, Natalie.



The relationship with Campion, his former staffer, became public on 7 February. Sebastian was born in Armidale on 16 April.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said Joyce had not breached any ministerial standards because Campion had not been his “partner” when she worked for him.

But Turnbull went on to criticise Joyce for exercising a “shocking error of judgment” before banning ministers from having sexual relationships with staff.

In late February, Joyce told Fairfax Media: “I don’t want our child to grow up as some sort of public display.”