Anyone who watched Sarah Ferguson’s interview with Barnaby Joyce this week on ABC’s 7:30, is likely to have some thoughts.
The dog is to blame. Barnaby’s temper is to blame. The woke left are to blame. Or, maybe, he just created a diversion tactic to take our attention away from Pauline Hanson’s constant ball fumbles?
But prominent journalist and media adviser, Vikki Campion (also the wife of Barnaby) has come out with a sensationally different take. She blames the ABC and has pledged that the public broadcaster will never enter her home again.
In a post to her Substack, Campion wrote “Barnaby is a big boy and can take the heat. But it is one thing for Ferguson to cast a live stream into my house, and then question whether my dog exists.
“She might not have heard the barking, thanks to noise-cancelling audio, but I could.”
Campion said broadcasters needed to better understand that interviews conducted from rural properties were different from studio settings.
“We are not in a studio. We don’t have a whole team fussing around us. We’re on a farm, doing our best to appease the media,” she wrote.
The subtext: Barnaby Joyce represents a different realm of regional voters than the ABC (in its woke-left adulating glory), could never understand.
Of course, lived experience is a good thing in politics. But just because Joyce lives regionally, just outside Tamworth with his family, doesn’t mean he understands the plight of those doing it toughest.
A quick recap: Joyce was raised by multi-millionaire parents. He went to an elite boarding school and then university. He now earns close to $240,000 and has earned around this (or more) for years. Meanwhile, the median personal salary in Tamworth sits at $35,568 annually.
Campion dug deeper, defending her husband’s transparency and integrity in doing the interview.
“If you don’t do the interview you are accused of ‘hiding’ from transparency and if you do the interview, you are smashed for yelling at a dog… to sit down.”
She claimed Stella (the dog) had been incessantly barking at a passing vehicle during the interview.
“What viewers and a sanctimonious host missed on Monday night was a mostly-black dog, barking into the pitch-black night at a passing vehicle she found suspicious,” she wrote.
“Ferguson doesn’t have to conduct her interview with incessant barking in her ear.
“But Barnaby has to answer her questions with that ongoing distraction without comment, apparently.”
It’s an interesting position, and by that, I mean supremely cynical. One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has repeatedly declared her intention to defund the ABC if she becomes Prime Minister. The Party is already having Barnaby-branded “SIT DOWN” t-shirts produced and sold.
My read? Barnaby’s temper will always be his Achilles heel. He really did go from zero to 100 yelling at the dog—a moment that, to most people, looked pretty unhinged. But Barnaby also has an uncanny ability to turn a political shit sandwich into an opportunity.
And Vikki Campion? Well, she’s become central to that talent.