Less than 36 hours after Barnaby Joyce told the media the paternity of his partner's unborn child was not clear, the former deputy prime minister has declared the issue "nobody's business".

Key points: Yesterday, Fairfax published an interview with Barnaby Joyce in which he said paternity of partner's unborn child was "a grey area"

Yesterday, Fairfax published an interview with Barnaby Joyce in which he said paternity of partner's unborn child was "a grey area" Today, asked whether report was correct, he said such personal matters were "nobody else's business"

Today, asked whether report was correct, he said such personal matters were "nobody else's business" He resigned as Deputy PM three weeks after his relationship with a former staffer, and news of the baby, was made public

In an interview with Fairfax Media published on Sunday, Mr Joyce said the issue of whether he was the biological father of the child he is expecting with his former media adviser Vikki Campion was "a grey area".

Mr Joyce went into detail about the reasons there may have been a question mark around the issue, but specified he would not be getting a paternity test and was planning to raise the child as his own regardless of who the father is.

Hours after the story was published, Mr Joyce released a statement saying he and Ms Campion felt they had "no choice but to tell the story" given media requests and continued paparazzi attention.

At a press conference today, Mr Joyce told reporters asking about the weekend's reports that it was "nobody's business but mine and Vikki's".

"Anything that's personal in nature is nobody else's business but mine and Vikki's. So we're not here to be part of some ongoing litany of discussion about this," he said.

Sorry, this video has expired Insiders panel discusses comments made by Barnaby Joyce that his partner's baby may not be his

Government frontbencher and fellow Nationals member Darren Chester advised Mr Joyce to "take a break" from speaking to the media about his personal life.

The Veterans' Affairs Minister told Sky News Mr Joyce needed to show more discipline to help the Government "move on".

"I'd encourage him to take a break, to get out there and reconnect with the people he loves in his electorate," he said.

"I'm not sure you achieve much from talking about issues in the past, particularly in his own mind, since he said — when he stood down — he wants to create a circuit breaker.

You can't have a circuit breaker if you're still talking about those old issues every day."

In February, the Daily Telegraph revealed Mr Joyce's relationship with his former staffer, Ms Campion, by publishing a front-page story complete with photos of her pregnant, beneath the headline "Bundle of Joyce".

She is due to have the baby in just over a month.

At the time, the newspaper said the pair was expecting a child together and its reporter Sharri Markson insisted she put the question of whether Mr Joyce was the father directly to his office before her story was published.

She said she received no response to that specific question.

She said she addressed the same question to Ms Campion and received no response.

Further adding to impressions Mr Joyce is the father, his estranged wife Natalie Joyce released a statement soon after the original story, saying she was deeply saddened by the news her husband was "having a child with a former staff member".

Mr Joyce resigned as deputy prime minister and leader of The Nationals almost three weeks after the article was published, with questions swirling over the spending of taxpayer money on Ms Campion's jobs within Government.