Joyce calls for privacy law change

BARNABY Joyce has ramped up his calls for more stringent privacy laws after arguing with a photographer on the street a week after giving a $150,000 television interview.

The former Nationals leader denies the photographer’s claims he had shaped up to throw a punch at the man, who Mr Joyce said was “hiding in the bushes” outside a church on Sunday.

Mr Joyce said he accepted public figures would get media attention, but laws needed to be changed to protect people like his partner Vikki Campion and the couple’s baby son Sebastian from paparazzi.

“These people have the capacity to destroy someone’s life,” Mr Joyce said.

He said Ms Campion, his former media adviser, had been harassed for months after it was revealed in February that Mr Joyce was having an affair with Ms Campion, who was pregnant with their child.

“Private individuals, kids especially, should have greater protections than what they’ve got. They haven’t got any,” Mr Joyce said.

Government minister Simon Birmingham was quick to show he wouldn’t support the move.

“I don’t see any need for Australia’s privacy laws to be changed,” he said.

The former deputy prime minister first called for a “tort of privacy” in his infamous paid interview with Seven’s Sunday Night program.

He said the couple did the interview in the hope it would be a “circuit-breaker” which would end the intense scrutiny on their private lives.

“We certainly wouldn’t have done the interview if we thought it was just going to continue on, obviously it is,” Mr Joyce said.

Mr Joyce has answered 79 questions from an expenses watchdog about whether he used taxpayers’ money on trips with Ms Campion.

The official audit of expenses by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority began on February 7, the day photos of a pregnant Ms Campion were published.

Investigations are continuing and both Mr Joyce and Ms Campion deny any wrongdoing. Despite being on two weeks of medical leave, Mr Joyce has been unable to stay out of the headlines.