Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has accused the political editor of News Limited’s Sunday newspapers of manufacturing a story about him lobbying Tony Abbott to lift the baby bonus to $10,000. Joyce outlines how the non-story came to be in a whimsical op-ed for Fairfax today but declines to name the journo in question: Samantha Maiden.
“Not at any time, sober or otherwise, have I ever broached the topic of doubling the baby bonus with Abbott, and there was certainly nothing that I had said to the journalist that could possibly be interpreted that I personally was pushing for it,” Joyce writes.
Nevertheless, Maiden rushed into print on Sunday with a piece thundering that “Barnaby Joyce is pushing Tony Abbott to double the baby bonus for stay-at-home mums to $10,000 if he wins power at the next election”.
“Where did this story come from?” a bewildered Barnaby ponders today. “I know the journalist is competent, so she would not have just made it up. It is highly unlikely she would have believed the Labor Party if it said I had been lobbying Abbott. So where did this credible source come from? I have had curt exchanges via email with the journalist concerned, and even though we still ”adore” one another, we have decided not to talk to each other for a little while.”
Rushed into print ? Sadly, Matthew Knott has simply made that up.
The Sunday Telegraph interviewed Barnarby Joyce last Friday, nearly 48 hours before the article was home delivered to readers. As he confirms in his “whimsical” opinion piece, we asked him a direct question about whether he still supported the policy to double the baby bonus and whether it still was Nationals policy. At no stage did he express personal opposition to the policy – nor in the 36 hours or so after the interview before the article went to print. His argument now is that he fudged the article because he didn’t know what he was talking about.
The reason we contacted Senator Joyce and others including Nationals leader Warren Truss, is that a plan to double the baby bonus IS on the Nationals Party policy platform. Believe it or not is still is and Crikey readers can read it here on page 23 of the 2011-12 Policy Platform http://www.nationals.org.au/Policy.aspx It was put on the website in December. As the Finance Minister Penny Wong pointed out this policy would have a substantial budgetary impact of around $900 million a year rising to $3 billion over the forward estimates.
The reason we said the Nationals were pushing Tony Abbott to embrace the policy was to accurately reflect the fact it was not Coalition policy and not misrepresent the double the baby bonus plan as Tony Abbott’s own policy positition.
The Nationals 2011-12 policy platform states the following under the Work Life Balance Section:
“Ensure those ineligible for paid parental leave
are provided for under a new allowance,
replacing the baby bonus, which will be paid
fortnightly over six months at double the
amount. This will benefit single parents and
families where one parent stays home.”
Essentially, Senator Joyce’s argument is that he didn’t know his party’s policy on the baby bonus and he was too embarrassed to admit it to a journalist so he bluffed his way through an interview. He asked if it was policy and confirmed it was. He was then asked why it was policy and discussed the need to support stay at home mums.
If your argument is that Senator Joyce should be provided a “cooling off period” for being a goose and making comments to journalists despite the fact he doesn’t actually know his party’s own policy platform, I can confirm he was offered one.
PS: I know it’s old fashioned but why is it too hard for Crikey to pick up a phone and check any of this with me before “rushing” this article into print ?
I think Ms Maiden can rest easy in the knowledge that most Crikey readers would have assumed that the process she describes is what happened.
Joyce has form in trying to harrumph his way through various contradictory positions and is not noted for his attention to detail.
Oh dear, who should we believe here- a politician or a journalist?
Put me down for “none of the above”
As they say in the classics, “Is it true or did you read it in the Telegraph?” (for non-NSW people, replace ‘Telegraph’ with name of local News Limited tabloid).