Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has addressed the fat $150,000 cheque he’s set to cash for an interview with Channel 7, telling The Australian he never would have agreed to the massively publicised tell-all if the media had just kept their sticky beaks out of it.
Yep.
Joyce, who has frequently blasted the media for its interest in his affair with former media advisor Vikki Campion and their newborn child Sebastian, has been labelled a hypocrite for agreeing to the Channel 7 deal.
But the 51-year-old today said the interview is their only real chance for recourse, after an alleged attempt to mount defamation action against News Corporation – which broke the story nationally – collapsed before it could even begin.
After saying he’s “only too willing” to discuss enacting “a proper tort of privacy” with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Joyce said they had “tried everything else.”
Paraphrasing Campion, Joyce 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.”
Reports have circulated that Joyce and Campion intend to set aside the $150,000 payout for Sebastian, but that hasn’t stopped criticism.
The interview is scheduled to air 8.30pm on Sunday Night.
