Barnaby gets rare Campion support

GRANDFATHER-TOBE P e t e r Campion ( right) says his blood pressure has inexplicably dropped since learning his daughter Vikki was pregnant with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s baby.

The former firefighter from Tolga has stopped answering the incessant barrage of calls from southern media outlets that followed his interview with the Cairns Post last week.

“My blood pressure is down to the high range of normal for the first time in yonks,” he said. “Frankly, I was amazed.” Mr Campion paid Mr Joyce a rare backhanded compliment after learning he had called Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s recent parliamentary rebuke “inept”.

“Barnaby’s speech outside Parliament today was a baby step in the right direction. Barnaby had the perfect opportunity to give ‘Talkbull’ the uppercut he desperately needs but instead only give him an open-handed slap to the cheek – gentlemanly, for sure, but must try harder,” he said.

Mr Campion has not heard from his 33-year-old daughter for years, but his wife is in regular contact. He said he was proud of Vikki, who was intelligent, politically aware, outspoken and, like him, stubborn.

But his message was to Mr Joyce, who appeared to have “belatedly grown a set”. “If anyone should resign over this scandal it should be Talkbull, who was well aware of it prior to the New England by-election but who lacked the leadership to address it when it should have been addressed,” he said.