Lock up your daughters:
Malcolm Turnbull has banned his minsters from having sex with their staff, sent Barnaby Joyce on leave and suggested he “consider his position”, as he tried to end the embarrassment crippling his government.
Hours after telling Parliament Mr Joyce would be taking leave next week and therefore would not serve as Acting Prime Minister next week, Mr Turnbull announced the ministerial code of conduct had been rewritten to forbid a minister engaging sexual relations with staff, regardless of whether they were single of married.
“I do not care whether they are married or single, I do not care. They must not have sexual relations with their staff, that’s it,” he said.
He said Mr Joyce’s affair with former staffer Vikki Campion, who is now pregnant, was appalling and “a shocking error of judgment”.
“It does not speak strongly enough for the values that we should all live, values of respect, respectful workplaces, of workplaces where women are respected,” he said.
“The truth is as we know, is most of the ministers, most of the bosses in this building if you like, are men and there is a gender, a real gender perspective here.”
The drip feed of scandal continues:
Barnaby Joyce has faced new questions over government payments worth more than $5000 made to a hotel owned by his close friend and businessman Greg Maguire, who last year gifted him six months rent free in an Armidale townhouse.
Labor used question time to ambush Mr Joyce over payments made by the Agriculture Department when he was minister on March 31, 2016, to the Quality Powerhouse Hotel in Tamworth.
Documents provided by the department show it forked out $2691 to cover three-course meals — including “smoked Thai beef salad”, “braised country fresh lamb shanks” and “sticky date pudding” — for an Agricultural Industry Advisory Council networking dinner attended by Mr Joyce and his wife, Natalie.
The cost of drinks — including Stony Peak’s Sparkling, Shiraz Merlot and Chardonnay — set taxpayers’ back $2377.50, with Labor asking Mr Joyce whether his office had “played any role in selecting his close friend’s business” to hold the function.
Mr Joyce was forced to take the question “on notice”, saying he was not aware of any payment but later said decisions “in the vicinity of $5000” didn’t generally cross his desk when he was the minister.
More:
Barnaby Joyce owns land near a coal-seam gas project he promoted as resources minister, despite admitting it could be seen as a conflict of interest and pledging to sell it 4½ years ago.
The land, at Gwabegar in central NSW, is covered by the same petroleum exploration licence as Santos’s Narrabri Gas Project, which could supply up to half the state’s gas needs for the next 20 years.
Santos is seeking approval to drill up to 850 wells on 425 sites in the Narrabri project area, about 25km to the east of Mr Joyce’s land. If approved by the NSW government, the project could make way for further LNG developments in the area including, potentially, on Mr Joyce’s property.
The Deputy Prime Minister and his wife hold the land in two blocks totalling 970 hectares. They paid $230,000 for the first, on Heads Road, Gwabegar, in July 2006. They purchased an adjacent block for $342,000 in 2008.
Mr Joyce is on record as saying he didn’t realise the blocks — in The Pilliga region between Coonabarabran and Narrabri — were subject to a petroleum exploration licence when he bought them.
More:
A key rival to Barnaby Joyce, Tony Windsor, has declared the Nationals should have asked the Deputy Prime Minister to step down earlier in the week in order to preserve their “family values” brand.
Speaking to the ABC today, Mr Windsor denied his actions were motivated by his deep personal conflict with Mr Joyce.
“Not at all. If those women who were involved in various incidents with various players want to come out and make their statements they can. I’m not going to name those people,” he said.
“It’s up to the women … I wouldn’t be surprised, particularly given the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday, there are certain players [who] are going to expose poor behaviour.”
Paul Kelly says it’s serious and in political terms it is:
Malcolm Turnbull has effectively declared “no confidence” in Barnaby Joyce as Deputy Prime Minister. The government has plunged into the worst sort of crisis — a deadlock between its two senior figures, Turnbull and Joyce, with lethal fallout. Turnbull wants Joyce gone as the deputy prime minister but Joyce is fighting for his political life.
Joyce’s position is untenable, and the only acceptable course is resignation.
Yet Turnbull cannot sack Joyce as Nationals leader. The risk is that a traumatised Nationals party might stand behind its discredited leader and defy the Prime Minister, turning this into a far deeper crisis.
By his remarks, Turnbull has put his prime ministerial authority on the line. By saying Joyce must consider his position, he has cast his own damning judgment on the Nationals leader.
But is it a big deal in national interest terms? Or is it part of a pattern of focusing all energy on the issues of least gravity to the broader polity? Gay marriage, shift Australia Day, no sex with the Inbred Tomato all have merit as issues but not such they displace a national focus.
Intensively doing nothing for the national interest is now the most vital policy of all.
