Looks Like Barnaby Joyce Could Lose His Job

Barnaby Joyce—the Johnny Depp-battling, New Zealand citizenship-having babydaddy who also happens to be Deputy Prime Minister of Australia—is going through, shall we say, a bit of a hard time. Last week The Daily Telegraph scooped his affair with former media advisor and current girlfriend Vikki Campion, who is now heavily pregnant with his child. This week, there are speculations that Joyce has created one scandal too many and may not retain his leadership of the Nationals.

Joyce, who has a wife and four children back in Tamworth, is facing heavy criticism over the fact a new and unadvertised position was created for Campion after her affair with the Deputy Prime Minister became known by Canberra insiders. It’s unclear at this stage whether or not this act was a breach of ministerial standards.

Thing is, it’s definitely against the rules to give your wife a job—but getting your mistress a job might, technically, be okay. Section 2.23 of the ministerial code simple says that a minister's "close relatives and partners are not to be appointed to positions in their ministerial or electorate offices and must not be employed in the offices of other members of the executive government without the Prime Minister’s express approval".

Regardless, the ABC reports that the Nationals party room is worried about the optics of all this. When questioned this morning by the press, Nationals Senator John Williams ominously refused to clarify whether or not Joyce would lead the party in the next election.

"Let's see how all the travel things come out and so on, I just don't know," Williams told the ABC. When asked whether he believed Joyce had misused his ministerial position, he seemed a little uncertain:

"Hopefully he hasn't breached any regulations when it comes to travel allowances or the spending of the public purse. I am confident that everything is alright but I am not sitting in his office looking over his travel claims, so I can't justify what's what."

So much uncertainty, but one thing’s for sure: if Joyce heads to the back bench, we’ll definitely have less to write about.