EXCLUSIVE: He is best known to many as the Nationals politician who did his best to prevent gay people from marrying, even shouting ‘No’ in parliament in a last-ditch effort to prevent the inevitable, having earlier suggested same-sex couples “need to understand” and “respect” the “sanctity of marriage”. But True Crime News Weekly can now reveal Nationals MP David Littleproud is just the latest in a long line of federal politicians facing marriage difficulties of their own.

And thanks to Canberra’s press gallery remaining dead silent for almost a year, a vacuum of information has been created, that has now been filled instead with sleazy innuendo and false allegations on social media involving affairs with staffers a la Barnaby Joyce. Our publisher, Serkan Ozturk, wearily wades into the political mudslinging once again so you don’t have to.

Nationals MP David Littleproud separated from his wife, Sarah, in April of last year, it can be exclusively revealed this week. The couple, who were married for 20 years, have three children together.

Meanwhile, leading political journalists based in Canberra’s Federal Parliament were all informed of the couple’s separation by Littleproud’s office at the time. Strangely though, not one journalist thought to write a short story on the events, coming only months after Littleproud was one of only four MPs to vote ‘No’ against marriage equality in December 2017.

As reported by the ABC at the time: “Minutes before the same-sex marriage bill passed in Australia, a lone voice was heard in the House of Representatives yelling “no!” The voice is thought to have belonged to either Nationals MP Keith Pitt or Littleproud himself. Only two other MPs voted ‘No’ during the debate – Liberal MP Russell Broadbent and crossbencher Bob Katter.

Thanks to that code of silence from Canberra’s press gallery, Littleproud has in recent weeks been thrust into the public arena with all kinds of false rumours and stories emanating from social media about his personal life, particularly over Twitter.

The rumours forced Littleproud to publicly threaten defamation against a high-profile Twitter account run under a pseudonym but believed to be operated by a person who is attached to the Labor Party, or at the very least an active supporter. True Crime News Weekly has found no evidence for the rumours, and believes them to be completely false. The rumours were though wielded on to actual facts – which included truths such as neither Littleproud nor his wife wearing wedding bands for most of last year, and any mention of Sarah being erased from the MP’s official bio details.

However, despite the false rumours, that’s not to say Littleproud’s separation shouldn’t be news. It is. And it clearly should have been reported last year. Ironically, Littleproud’s marital situation has only been reported by News Corp today (in the last hour or two) after True Crime News Weekly publicly announced over Twitter that it will be producing a story on the MP’s separation.

Once again, it has taken a largely unfunded, under-resourced, low-budget independent investigative news site for paid, professional journalists to actually do their jobs.

While True Crime News Weekly was investigating this story, we were also threatened with defamation by sources close to Littleproud, while we as well received a slightly bizarre threat that Nationals members may investigate the personal life choices of this very website’s publisher [EDITOR’S NOTE: The publisher of this website, Serkan Ozturk, has already been quite public about his own relationship troubles early last year and personal issues, and as such we were not afraid, or, put off by of any of these threats. Sadly, it’s par for the course when producing independent investigative journalism].

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In an October 2016 feature article by SBS in the lead-up to the marriage equality conscience vote in late 2017, Littleproud told openly gay journalist, Patrick Abboud, that while “society” now respected “same-sex relationships”, members of the LGBTIQ community had to also “reciprocate” that respect.

“I think as a society we have moved a significant long way into respecting same-sex relationships … And I think that same-sex couples need to understand and reciprocate that respect in appreciating the sanctity of marriage to millions of people around this country,” Littleproud told SBS at the time.

In response, Abboud wrote that he believed Littleproud and some of his federal government colleagues were engaging in a form of respectable homophobia.

“Hearing this from David … wasn’t easy,” Abboud writes in the article. “It feels like homophobia in politically correct clothing. It doesn’t feel like respect.”

Littleproud, who is considered a committed Christian and a moderate within the Nationals, however had also publicly promised that he would use his conscience vote in Parliament to simply vote as his electorate of Maranoa had in the earlier public plebiscite. In the end, 56% of his electorate turned out to oppose marriage equality. And Littleproud ended up shouting ‘No’ in Parliament.

While the rumours about Littleproud’s situation were widely circulating across social media over the Christmas and New Year break, earlier this week, high-profile Labor MP, Anthony Albanese, announced his separation from his wife and former NSW Labor Deputy Leader, Carmel Tebbutt.

Perhaps seeing the hoopla surrounding Littleproud, in a short media statement, Albanese said that both he and Tebbutt would continue to care for their 18-year-old son and that there were “no third parties involved” in their decision to split after 30 years together as a couple.

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Due to the confirmed sleazy and hypocritical behaviour of Littleproud’s colleagues such as former Deputy PM, Barnaby Joyce, and more recently Andrew ‘Sugar Daddy’ Broad, True Crime News Weekly believes the 41-year-old MP has himself become collateral damage amidst the public’s growing appetite for political sleaze stories and its contemporaneous (and correctly so) distrust of journalists in Canberra’s press gallery to report events accurately and in a timely fashion.

A lot of heartache over the past few weeks could have been saved if journalists ensconced within the political bubble had produced a short factual story last year.

In a statement given directly to True Crime News Weekly, Littleproud finally admitted that he and his wife have been separated since early last year.

“I separated from my wife in early to mid-2018, a fact my office actively informed the Canberra press gallery at the time,” the MP said today.

“We remain good friends, and look forward to raising our children together.

“I ask for privacy for myself and family during this time.”

In a New Year’s message posted to his official Facebook page about a week ago, Littleproud had urged his followers to “cherish your family”, perhaps in a reflective nod to events in his own life over the past year.

Although our readers can rely on True Crime News Weekly to critically analyse any relevant information related to this story, we would like to suggest to our followers and the public to give Littleproud, his former wife and their family and loved ones some privacy during the holiday period.