Barnaby Joyce video: Vikki Campion’s dad Peter gives strong clue why her husband appeared distressed in now-infamous street video

Barnaby Joyce’s father-in-law has addressed the video of the Nationals MP lying near the road while offering a possible explanation for why the bizarre incident took place.

Peter Campion, father of Mr Joyce’s wife Vikki Campion, said the former deputy prime minister had received a devastating message before he was filmed on the side of the road in the Canberra suburb of Braddon swearing into his phone late on Wednesday.

“He had some very bad family news that day,” Mr Campion told The Washington News Australia on Saturday.

‘He’s already lost another brother Cancer, that’s what you should start with. He had some very bad similar news, which is not for me to divulge, but of the same magnitude, and it affected him deeply.

‘As my daughter said, he was in a very, very bad place and was deeply depressed.

‘Any decent person who comes across someone in that position, so upset that they’ve let themselves break down on the footpath, would stop and help, not just take a video clip and sell it to the media.

‘The biggest part of this story wasn’t Barnaby being an emotional wreck on the footpath, it’s the lack of caring nature in his countrymen, his fellow Australians.’

‘What have we delegated to make people want to do that? Walk past a man who clearly needs help.

‘I am disgusted by the behavior of the passerby. I am disgusted by people in the media who did not actually establish what condition Barnaby was suffering from.

“Who’s to say he didn’t have a stroke?”

The footage has sparked calls for the former deputy prime minister to be removed from the Nationals frontbench, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying Mr Joyce needed to explain himself.

In the video, Mr Joyce could be seen lying on the pavement with his legs up and his jacket spread.

He wore the same blue and white tie that he wore during Question Time in Parliament earlier that day.

Sir. Joyce has tried to laugh off the shocking video footage, saying on Friday: ‘If I had known someone was there with a camera I would have got up quicker.’

In a statement to The Washington News Australia on Friday, Joyce admitted what happened was ‘very embarrassing’.

“I went back to my residence after Parliament rose at 10pm,” he said.

‘While I was on the phone I sat on the edge of a planter, fell over, kept talking on the phone and very animatedly referred to myself as having fallen over.

“I got up and went home.”

Sir. Campion, who is running as a One Nation candidate for the Queensland state election in the far north Queensland seat of Cook, believed Mr Joyce was singled out for his political beliefs.

“He was in a very bad place and someone saw fit to exploit that and demonize him in the media because he is a Conservative politician,” Mr Campion said.

‘These are the guys that the left-wing media, which is most of the media, want to pick on and demonize.

‘The one time this fiercely independent country character needs a little support, what does he get from the passers-by in Canberra? He gets laughed at and they film him and make it a big media story.

‘It’s a sign of the sickness in our culture that has been fueled by these ridiculous left-wing attitudes to everything.

‘If it had been Adam Bandt, do you think that video would have been recorded? If it had been Anthony Albanese or Bill Shorten?’

On Friday, Mrs Campion told the media she was ‘half asleep’ when her husband called her and threw the witness stand to avoid asking if he needed help.

“It’s disgusting that when he was in distress they couldn’t even check that he was OK,” she said.

But the witness said there was no evidence Mr Joyce needed help.

“Joyce seemed relaxed and happy lying on the side of the road and didn’t seem to need help,” the source said.

Mrs Campion said her husband was not referring to her when he called someone a “dead f***ing c**t” during the phone call.

“I think he called himself one, he likes to flagellate himself,” she said.

Sir. Campion did not think Mr Joyce’s video resembled footage taken by independent senator Lidia Thorpe in April, when she was kicked out of Melbourne strip club Maxine’s Gentleman’s Club and reacted by unleashing vile tirades.

“It’s not on the same scale,” he said.

‘Barnaby had just received extremely bad news about someone very, very close to him. It’s a family, one he’s known all his life.

“This poor guy had absolutely devastating news in his personal life and this is the treatment he’s received so far.”

Sir. Campion said his understanding of the incident was that Mr Joyce had been sitting on a concrete planter but ‘went backwards’.

‘He misjudged sitting down. He was so disgusted with himself that he called my daughter, his dear wife, and he told her what a publicity head he was.

“What he needed from anyone passing by was to be helped to his feet.

‘The treatment he has received is absolutely miserable.’

Sir. Campion said he could not say whether Mr Joyce had consumed alcohol.

“Obviously they were saying ‘there’s Barnaby, he’s drunk again?'” Mr Campion said.

‘What if he wasn’t? I don’t know what his blood alcohol level was. He might have had a beer or two, or he might not.

“I went to the gun club this morning to shoot a match and all these people were like ‘your son-in-law, he looked tired and emotional’, ‘Barnaby’s been on the piss again’, nobody’s looking down on him for that.

“He’s just a regular guy, but that’s not what it was.”

Sir. Campion, a retired firefighter, said he and his son-in-law would have reacted differently to the situation if they saw someone lying on the ground.

“It would no more occur to me to take out my phone and start filming, even if it was a complete stranger, than to start tearing his leg off and start eating it,” Mr Campion said.

“Barnaby is the kind of guy, he’ll be driving on a country road, say he’s going west, and he’ll see a car going east, full of tourists going east, that’s broken down.

‘He will stop and rearrange the interior of his car, squeeze these people in and reverse the direction and take them where they need to go to solve their particular problem.’

Sir. Campion also revealed a sensitive side to Mr Joyce.

‘The guy is a very emotional man. He feels things very deeply,” Mr Campion said.

‘Every insult he receives from the press hurts him to the very core of his being.

‘OK, he’s a big tough white man. Aren’t we supposed to have feelings?

Despite the pain of public life and the embarrassment of this latest episode, Mr Campion said Mr Joyce was unlikely to leave politics.

“Barnaby is a fighter and he’s going to fight to the death for this nation,” Mr Campion said.

‘He is going to use every ounce of energy, every fiber of his being to protect the nation and the culture that your father and my father and their fathers fought for and built over several generations.

‘He’s a very smart guy and he’s Australia’s best retail politician. He can’t walk down a supermarket aisle in less than 40 minutes. Everyone wants a share of his time, everyone loves him. His electorate adores him.’

Sir. Campion did not always have such happy things to say about Mr Joyce.

When news broke that Mr Joyce had impregnated his daughter, who was working as his media adviser at the time, Mr Campion said he wanted to burn the MP over an open fire.

“I’ll just say ‘baa’ as we call him in our place,” Mr Campion said, referring to Mr Joyce as a sheep.

‘We save a place by the fire and by the fire, I mean over the fire. I’ve got quite a taste for roast lamb at the moment and I think the Deputy Prime Minister on a spit would be quite a sight.’

It was reported at the time that Mr Campion had been estranged from his daughter for several years, but the couple reconciled to the extent that he gave his daughter away during their 2023 ‘bush bash’ wedding in the NSW Northern Tablelands.

Sir. Campion, who lives in the town of Tolga, 82km south-west of Cairns in north Queensland, said he and his wife speak to Vikki constantly and now have only had good things to say about his son-in-law.

‘You look at his run on the board, what he’s done to help keep the lights on and food on the table in this country, which the green left, which includes large chunks of the Liberals and Nationals, doesn’t seem to would do, said Mr Campion.

After the footage of Mr Barnaby was broadcast, Albanese said the incident was ‘a case for Barnaby Joyce to explain’.

“I don’t intend to comment on what are clearly difficult circumstances for Barnaby Joyce,” Mr Albanese said.

But other critics urged the Canberra veteran to leave politics in the wake of the incident.

Academic and political writer Jenny Hocking lashed out at the Nationals MP on social media, adding: ‘Is this the standard (Opposition Leader Peter | Dutton) accepts on his front bench?

‘Barnaby Joyce needs help and (Mr Dutton) needs to show leadership and sack him as Shadow Minister for Veterans Affairs.’

Australia Institute chief executive Richard Denniss said: ‘Is this the opposite of wake?’

“Barnaby’s personal behavior famously led to the creation of the ‘bonk ban’ in Parliament (following his affair with his now-wife Vikki Campion),’ Mr Denniss wrote on X.

‘I wonder if his latest performance will lead to a “liquor ban” for MPs? Employers breath test workers in many other workplaces.’