Former deputy PM defends interview and says it would not have been needed if his privacy was protected

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has been granted extended leave and will not return to parliament until August.

Earlier on Tuesday, Joyce defended selling the story of his new family in a tell-all interview, saying it was his partner who decided to accept the six-figure payment.

Speaking with the Australian, Joyce said he and his staffer turned partner, Vikki Campion, wanted privacy after the birth of their son last month.

“Remember there are other people in this interview, being Vikki and Seb, so if it was just an interview with me as a politician, sure, I am not going to charge for that,” he said.

“But that is not what they wanted, they wanted an interview obviously to get Vikki’s side of the story and, like most mothers, she said: ‘Seeing as I am being screwed over and there are drones and everything over my house in the last fortnight, paparazzi waiting for me, if everybody else is making money then [I am] going to make money out of it.’

“If we had a proper tort of privacy we would never have had to do this.”

A tort would allow people to take court action to prevent serious invasions of privacy and seek remedies in cases where their privacy has been breached.

The Australian Law Reform Commission recommended in 2014 that such a privacy law be introduced but the government remains opposed.

Joyce was granted leave until the end of June, but will not be expected back at parliament until August, after the winter break. He told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday that he and his partner were being hounded by the media.

“In the last fortnight we’ve had drones over our house, we’ve had paparazzi waiting for us outside Armidale airport, we’ve had people following us to Uralla,” he said. “We tried just burning this out and that didn’t work.”

A number of Joyce’s colleagues have voiced discomfort over the interview. The cabinet minister Kelly O’Dwyer said she believed most Australians were “pretty disgusted”.

She said serving politicians should not put a price on being accountable to the public, and Joyce had made a mistake. “Ultimately it’s a matter for him and his judgment. I personally wouldn’t do it, I don’t think it’s right, and I think most Australians are pretty disgusted by it,” O’Dwyer told ABC radio.

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The couple sold their story to the Seven Network’s Sunday Night program for a reported $150,000. The interview, due to air on Sunday, has prompted calls for a ban on serving politicians receiving money for media comment.

The Nationals frontbencher Darren Chester, who was dumped by Joyce from cabinet in December, said he intended to raise the proposed ban with colleagues.

“This is unprecedented in my time in parliament and I’m open to the conversation about banning MPs from benefiting personally from selling stories to the media,” Chester said.

He acknowledged the circumstances were complex, given Campion was entitled to seek payment as a private citizen, but said the former Nationals leader could no longer complain about a breach of privacy.

The Labor deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, said she doubted a ban on politicians being paid for interviews would prove to be a solution, comparing it with a prohibition on sex with staff.

“If common sense and common decency don’t tell you that these things are the wrong thing to do, I don’t think a ban is going to fix the problem,” Plibersek told reporters.

Play Video 2:24 The downfall of Barnaby Joyce: a timeline – video

• Australian Associated Press contributed to this report