Malcolm Turnbull ordered a departmental investigation into whether Barnaby Joyce breached the ministerial code of conduct – but his departmental head has now canned the inquiry on the basis that there is “little to be gained” now that the former Nationals leader has moved to the backbench.



While the investigation – requested by Turnbull when the Joyce controversy was at its height but not disclosed until Senate estimates on Monday, has now been terminated – the independent authority charged with administering parliamentarians’ expenses is continuing to audit the taxpayer-funded travel undertaken by the member for New England and his former staffer and now partner, Vikki Campion.

As the investigations were revealed in Senate estimates hearings on Monday, the National party president, Larry Anthony, had a revelation of his own.

Anthony told Sky News he had asked a Western Australian woman alleging sexual harassment by Joyce to lodge a written complaint to the party – a development that triggered the deputy prime minister’s resignation last week.

Senior Nationals have denied they are responsible for a subsequent leak that has identified the WA-based complainant against her wishes, triggering a fierce backlash among rural leaders including the president of the National Farmers’ Federation, Fiona Simson.

Anthony revealed on Monday that he had asked the WA woman to lodge a written complaint after allegations had been “put to me by the leader, the deputy leader and a former leader of the West Australian Nationals”.

“I have to take these issues seriously; I said, well, if this is a substantial complaint, then it needs to be put in writing,” he said.

Anthony said he had worked as the crisis surrounding Joyce deepened to shore up his position with colleagues, so soliciting the written complaint was not an attempt to undermine his leader but to ensure that due process occurred. “When you have very serious allegations that are put to me by the leadership of another division, how am I meant to investigate it? They were looking for me to take action.”

The Nationals and the Turnbull government attempted on Monday to push past the torrid Joyce controversy, with the junior Coalition partner installing a new leader in Michael McCormack, who was sworn in after a special party-room meeting. Changes to ministries are expected later in the week.

The government was also pressed during Senate estimates hearings about the secret Coalition leader-to-leader agreement that sets down undertakings between the Liberal and National parties.

The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, was questioned about whether Turnbull actually had the power as prime minister to terminate Joyce, given that his position was determined by the written agreement between the two parties, which also covers ministries and staff allocations.

While Nationals have been keen to characterise the Coalition agreement as a high-level political document, and have resisted efforts, including legal action, to make the document public – Cormann conceded on Monday that the Coalition agreement “goes to the running of government” and also specifies the “allocation of staff to the National party”.

Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, seized on the description, and told Cormann, based on his evidence to the committee: “There is no basis on which the government can continue to hide this document from the public.”

Cormann said the agreement was a “political document” that “goes to how our parties work together in government and opposition,” including the proportion of ministers and opposition spokespeople and staff which are “administrative arrangements between two political parties”.

The fact that Turnbull sought a departmental investigation into whether or not Joyce breached the ministerial code was revealed on Monday afternoon by officials from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, who told a Senate estimates hearing that the prime minister had written to the head of the department, Martin Parkinson, on 21 February asking him to investigate.

Labor senators questioned why Turnbull had waited two weeks from the first publication by the Daily Telegraph of details of the Joyce’s affair with Campion to seek a formal investigation, and why the prime minister had given no hint of his actions during his public defence of Joyce.

Cormann told the committee Turnbull had formed a view the investigation was warranted, and denied that the prime minister was aware of the sexual harassment complaint about Joyce at the time he made the referral on 21 February.

Turnbull wrote to Parkinson stating that the deputy prime minister had unequivocally advised him that he had not breached the code of conduct, but Turnbull and Joyce had agreed “to ensure complete transparency” to refer it to him.

After Joyce resigned on Friday, Parkinson then wrote to Turnbull advising that the PM&C investigation be canned because there was “little to be gained” by inquiring into whether Joyce’s conduct complied with the code now that he was no longer a minister.



“I note, however, that the audit into the use of travel and travel-related expenses by Mr Joyce and Ms Campion by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority is ongoing,” Parkinson said.

Questions about the separate IPEA inquiry were referred to that agency, due to give evidence on Tuesday, but Cormann confirmed it was not instigated by the prime minister or his office.

Asked why the prime minister had not acted sooner, Cormann said it was “very difficult for anyone not directly involved to judge when a relationship moves from a purely professional relationship and nothing else to a partnership”.



Cormann said that Turnbull did not have knowledge of the affair until the Daily Telegraph publication in February, saying that nothing before that point rose above the level of “rumour and innuendo”.

He denied a report that Joyce told Turnbull about the affair in December 2016 after being ordered to do so by his chief of staff, Di Hallam. Cormann said his advice was that the prime minister’s office was not involved in forcing Joyce to move Campion out of his office in April 2017.

In another Senate estimates committee, department officials said Barnaby Joyce did not provide a reference for Hallam to help her get a job on the government’s Inland Rail project.

Hallam became general manager of operations of the Inland Rail project last year after quitting Joyce’s office.

Carl Murphy, the Department of Infrastructure’s chief operating officer, told senators on Monday that Joyce did not provide a reference for Hallam, and nor did she receive a reference from any other party or office she had worked in.

“Her referee was the secretary of agriculture, Mr Daryl Quinlivan,” he said.

Murphy said between 16 March and 3 April 2017, the Department of Infrastructure advertised it was seeking to fill a number of vacancies for a general manager role, without specifying any positions.



“We had in mind that Inland Rail might be approved in the [2017-18] budget and if it were we would draw from this process to fill positions in what would then become a larger part of the department, and funds would be allocated to Inland Rail as a result of the budget,” he said on Monday.

“Prior to Ms Hallam being engaged, Inland Rail was not a division, it was a branch within the infrastructure investment division,” he said.

“The decision was taken to increase its size to a division once there had been certainty that the Inland Rail project was being funded as announced in the [2017-18] budget.

He said 136 applications were received, and 56 were shortlisted. He said six positions had been filled through the process so far, one of which was Hallam’s.