Soon after the scandal became frontpage news, the then-PM introduced his infamous “bonk ban” which many ministers resisted, with the exception of Scott Morrison and Christopher Pyne.
As calls for Joyce to be sacked intensified, Turnbull said it was “up to the Deputy Prime Minister to consider his own position,” but many saw through the public pretence.
“What we saw from the Prime Minister today was a Prime Minister who doesn’t have confidence in his own deputy and doesn’t seem to have the wit to work out how to do anything about it,” Labor frontbencher and now Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, told the ABC at the time.
Sixteen days after news of the affair broke, Joyce resigned as deputy prime minister and leader of the National party and moved to the backbench. He and Campion are still together in 2020; they live in Armidale and have two sons together.
Chapter 44 of Turnbull’s book titled…
