Cool, Cool: Did You Know Barnaby Joyce Is Our Acting Prime Minister Next Week?

Great timing!

The heat is on Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, and only getting hotter, with an impending stint as Acting Prime Minister intensifying criticism of his alleged affair with former staffer Vikki Campion.

Update (15 Feb): The PM has announced Barnaby Joyce will be taking a leave of absence next week, leaving Finance Minister Mathias Cormann as acting PM instead. (Julie Bishop would have been next in line after Joyce, but she'll be out of the country too.) The original article as published follows below.

Woah, woah, slow down. What’s happening?

Okay, let’s take it piece by piece, starting with Joyce’s statement from this morning.

As reported by the ABC, Barnaby Joyce apologised to Vikki Campion today after publicly confirming their relationship for the first time.

He also apologised to his voters and his family, particularly his wife Natalie, who called the end of their 24-year marriage "devastating" (briefly earning Barnaby, a marriage equality opponent, a spot on the Wikipedia page for ‘hypocrisy).

The Nationals leader made the statement after a nightmare day in Parliament, where Joyce and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull were both grilled about the nature of the alleged affair.

Last week, it was revealed Campion was several months pregnant with Joyce’s child, inspiring a flood of politicians to high-road one another by saying the story was not in the public interest.

However, the story has caught fire in Canberra due to the fact Campion was previously a senior staffer in Joyce’s office.

Here’s where it gets especially curly:

As Joyce's statement explains, Campion began working for him in August of 2016, where "a friendship subsequently developed and that became, over time, more."

Campion was eventually given a new role in the office of Nationals senator Matt Canavan in April of 2017. And when Senator Canavan lost his position as part of the great citizenship purge of 2017, Campion was moved to the National Chief Whip’s office.

It's the suggestion that the role was created specifically for her (and reportedly came with a six-figure salary) that's raising eyebrows.

Now, Labor is pressing the Coalition on ministerial standards, asking if Joyce breached the ministerial code of conduct by not declaring the employment of a “partner” to the Prime Minister (who would have had to give the nod of approval).

Confusingly, Joyce and Turnbull claim everything was above board because, at the time of the affair, Campion wasn’t strictly Joyce’s “partner”, and the PM apparently was “not aware of the relationship” before either of her two moves.

Given all this drama, why in the world is Barnaby going to be our Acting Prime Minister next week?

Very good question. See, the Prime Minister is heading to the United States next week, and it's tradition for the Deputy to take charge when the regular PM is unavailable.

In this instance, that, of course, will be Barnaby Joyce. Malcolm Turnbull confirmed it as recently as yesterday.

Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus thinks it’s a mistake to hand over the reins to the embattled Deputy, saying, “It is hard to believe Mr. Joyce could do justice to that position given the distractions he is now enduring.”

Welp, you’ll know by next week whether or not Barnaby is our Acting Prime Minister. But more pressing, perhaps, is his ongoing status as Deputy.

Photo: Facebook (BarnabyJoyceMP)