EXCLUSIVE
The ex-wife of former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has broken her silence after Daily Mail Australia published a video of her ex-husband lying on a Canberra footpath muttering profanities.
Explosive video showed Joyce, 56, talking on the phone as he lay on a footpath in the Canberra suburb of Braddon at around 11.26pm on Wednesday night.
In one incident, which the former deputy prime minister has now attributed to a mixture of alcohol and medication, Mr Joyce could be heard saying “f***ing dead”.
He had fallen to the ground from a flower pot, “rolled” and then continued his conversation as a passer-by walked by, filming the strange sight with his mobile phone.
Natalie Abberfield, the mother of Barnaby’s four oldest daughters, said of her ex-husband on Monday: “I hope he’s okay.”
Barnaby Joyce’s first wife Natalie has broken her silence over video of the MP falling on a Canberra street. Above is the former couple at the Parliamentary Winter Ball in 2017 before they split.
Natalie Abberfield said she hoped her ex-husband was okay. Above, she is seen lying on the ground in a video obtained exclusively by Daily Mail Australia.
‘I will not say anything else. It’s his private life. I’m not in his life anymore.
When asked to comment on the medication Joyce was taking, Mrs Abberfield said: “I don’t know, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you!”
Peter Campion, Barnaby’s father-in-law, criticized the politician, calling him a “surprise” for continuing to take his medication.
‘He’s onto something. I know when it comes to medications, it’s a surprise.
‘Vikki always asks him to take them and he doesn’t.
“You forget to take them, you forget to follow the course of whatever you’re doing.”
Campion said he did not believe Joyce was taking blood pressure medication. —Do you mean the red face? No, that’s something else.
‘He even turns red when he’s not excited. He is not an alcoholic.
Campion then offered a surprising suggestion for all politicians working in Parliament in Canberra.
Barnaby Joyce and his wife Vikki Campion (above at their wedding) were talking on the phone late last Wednesday night when he fell from a flower pot onto the footpath.
While he carefully noted that his son-in-law’s incident had occurred “after” Parliament had adjourned and was off the premises, he suggested that politicians be “screened on the way in” each day.
“They do it in the mines,” Mr Campion said. ‘They should pass a law so that drug and alcohol testing is carried out on every shift.
‘It’s a serious place. “They are passing laws.”
On Monday morning, Joyce said he drank alcohol after Parliament rose at 10pm, telling Natalie Barr on Sunrise: “Look, obviously, I made a big mistake.” There is no excuse for it.
‘There is a reason. And it was an eventful ride home, wasn’t it?
‘I’m taking a prescription medication and they say certain things can happen to you if you drink (take it), and they were absolutely right. They did it.’
Joyce responded to suggestions from some that he should resign or be reprimanded as a result of his actions by saying it was “not really my decision.”
“I’m not going to engage in a long dialogue about what other people might want to do,” he said.
Mr Joyce lay in Lonsdale Street, Braddon, around midnight last Wednesday, after falling from a flower pot in the street while on the phone.
Barnaby Joyce said he made a mistake by mixing alcohol with medication and felt dizzy and then fell on the trail and “rolled” while talking on the phone. Above, at her recent wedding.
Joyce’s father-in-law Peter Campion (the men appear together) has suggested that all politicians be tested for drugs and alcohol upon entering Parliament at “every turn”.
At the weekend, Campion revealed to Daily Mail Australia that Joyce had “very bad family news” on her bedtime.
‘He already lost a brother to cancer, that’s what you have to start with. She had similar very bad news, which is not my place to divulge but of the same magnitude and it affected her deeply.
Campion lives in northern Queensland and is a former candidate for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party in the federal seat of Bob Katter’s Kennedy.
He plans to run for office again in the Queensland state election later this year. This time he will appear at the Cook state headquarters, located in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
He agreed with his daughter Vikki’s sentiment that instead of filming Barnaby Joyce, the person who did it should have helped the MP up.
“That’s what Barnaby would have done.”
He said Vikki and Joyce’s sons, Sebastian and Tom, would stay in Tamworth during the parliamentary term, now that the eldest boy had started kindergarten.
The retired firefighter said it had been an eventful few days for his family, with his pet Labrador cross Doggo recovering after nearly dying from the bite of a red-bellied black snake.
Mr. Campion and his wife. We have started a GoFundMe page for Doggo..