Barnaby Joyce has revealed it was his partner Vikki Campion's decision to accept payment for the controversial television interview, after initially calling for privacy following their son's birth.
The couple is said to be pocketing $150,000 from the tell-all interview which will be broadcast next Sunday night on Channel Seven.
The former deputy prime minister has come under fire for selling his story, with Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer saying "most Australians are pretty disgusted by it".
But Mr Joyce defended his decision, saying he and his staffer-turned-partner had "tried for privacy".
Mr Joyce said he would not have asked for payment if the interview was only with him.
"If it was just an interview with me as a politician, sure, I am not going to charge for that," he told The Australian.
"But that is not what they wanted, they wanted an interview obviously to get Vikki's side of the story and like most mothers she said: 'Seeing as I am being screwed over and there are drones and everything over my house in the last fortnight, paparazzi waiting for me, if everybody else is making money then [I am] going to make money out of it," he said.
Sky News on Tuesday reported Mr Joyce "has taken personal leave effective immediately. The member for New England will be off for 11 weeks and will return in the August sitting week."
Mr Joyce said he and Ms Campion wanted privacy after the birth of their son, Sebastian.
"In the last fortnight we've had drones over our house, we've had paparazzi waiting for us outside Armidale airport, we've had people following us to Uralla," Mr Joyce told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
"We tried just burning this out and that didn't work."
Cabinet minister Kelly O'Dwyer said serving politicians should not put a price on being accountable to the public, and Mr Joyce had made a mistake.
"Ultimately it's a matter for him and his judgment. I personally wouldn't do it, I don't think it's right, and I think most Australians are pretty disgusted by it," Ms O'Dwyer told ABC radio.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he'll raise the matter privately with Mr Joyce.
"It's not something that I would have encouraged him to do, in fact quite the contrary," Mr Turnbull told Tasmanian radio station LAFM.
The controversial interview to air on Sunday has prompted calls for a ban on serving politicians receiving cash for media comment.
Nationals frontbencher Darren Chester, who was dumped by Mr Joyce from Cabinet in December, intends to raise the proposed ban with colleagues.
"This is unprecedented in my time in parliament and I'm open to the conversation about banning MPs from benefiting personally from selling stories to the media," Mr Chester told The Daily Telegraph.
He acknowledged the circumstances were complex given Ms Campion was entitled to seek payment as a private citizen but said the former Nationals leader could no longer complain about a breach of privacy.
Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek doubts a ban on politicians being paid for interviews will prove a solution, likening it to a prohibition on sex with staff.
"If common sense and common decency don't tell you that these things are the wrong thing to do, I don't think a ban is going to fix the problem," Ms Plibersek told reporters.
Share
