Barnaby Joyce will miss this week’s parliamentary sittings after a close family member was diagnosed with a serious illness and he was filmed lying on a Canberra footpath mumbling into a mobile phone.
The former Nationals leader had defiantly refused to take leave in recent weeks after the fallout from his Braddon misadventure made national headlines.
“I don’t take advice from people in Canberra,” he said. “I take advice from my wife, my close friends, and my local GP. I do not listen to the views of people in this crazy boarding school they call Parliament.
“Look, obviously, I made a big mistake — there’s no excuse for it.
“There is a reason, and it was a very eventful walk home wasn’t it. I’m on a prescription drug, and they say certain things may happen to you if you drink, and they were absolutely 100 per cent right.”
But on Monday, David Littleproud confirmed that he had decided to take personal leave following a stressful period.
“He won’t be here this week. He’s notified me that he won’t be coming to parliament,” Mr Littleproud told Nine’s Today program.
“He’s having the week off, which we gave him the opportunity to undertake with his family [sic]. And I respect that. And I hope, hope he went to church yesterday and all he had was altar wine.”
The former deputy prime minister had declared he is ashamed and “embarrassed” after the video emerged and he revealed he had mixed alcohol with prescription medicine
Both the Liberal leader Peter Dutton and Mr Littleproud privately urged him to take leave
“Barnaby’s embarrassed himself and his family, and while he’s clearly articulated some of the underlying issues and circumstances, there are other circumstances that I’m not going to break his confidence on,” Mr Littleproud said.
The bizarre footage recorded the Nationals frontbencher lying on the footpath in Canberra late at night while mumbling “dead f**king c***” into his phone.
In a statement, Mr Joyce said he was embarrassed and confirmed he had fallen off the inner-city planter box.
His new wife Ms Campion, who confirmed he was on the phone with her at the time, said the harsh words were not directed at her.
“No I think he was calling himself one, he likes to self flagellate,” she told news.com.au.
Ms Campion said she was disappointed someone filmed the incident rather than render assistance.
“I’ve been with Barnaby when we have found a man in the same state on the street and rather than take a video and sell it to the media, he picked the guy up and took him home, we later found out there had been problems with his medication and if he hadn’t helped him back he could have been in a very bad situation,” she said.
Ms Campion said her husband did hurt himself, but observed that like most farmers he never complained.
“He did hurt his back but he hasn’t made a big deal of it,” she said. “The guy who took the video witnessed him fall off the pot plant and confirmed that to the Daily Mail, and instead of checking if he was OK, whipped his phone out, took a video and kept walking. Lovely.”
Witnesses claim the MP had been sitting on a large pot plant while chatting on the phone before he fell off and started swearing into the phone.
Barnaby Joyce has made no secret of his mental health issues. He had previously written that he needed to seek help during his marriage breakdown.
“Winston Churchill had his black dog. Mine was a half-crazed cattle dog, biting everything that came near the yard,” Mr Joyce wrote in his book.
He eventually did seek the help of a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with depression.
He also started praying at a “special” rock he found on Canberra’s Red Hill.