CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
In the wake of the news that former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has reportedly accepted at $150,000 payment for a tell-all story about his new family with Channel 7, it can be today revealed that the ABC’s Four Corners had also made a bid for the rights.
Barnaby Joyce and his new partner, Vikki Campion, have reportedly sold the story of their relationship to the Seven Network for $150,000, with the interview to air on the Sunday Night program, months after appealing for privacy and telling the media to “move on”.
While Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes are believed to have pulled on on the bidding war at around the 100k mark, the ABC have had to today declare that they too had a run at it.
“We don’t have much cash floating around here after the budget freeze” said ABC Director Michelle Guthrie.
“But we thought we might be able to persuade him with a ten-pack of pre-mixed Bundy and cokes, as well as twenty Pall Mall Rich Blues.
Guthrie says upon consultation with Pip Courtney from Landline, the Four Corners team were confident that ten or so rumbos is usually all it takes to get Barnaby to open up and little, and the smokes were just complimentary.
However, this humble offer was dismissed the moment the commercial networks started to up their fee to the $100-$200 mark.
“He ended up with $150,000. Which is a bit how ya going” said Guthrie.
“You can buy like 60,000 black rats with that kind of coin”
Joyce’s colleagues have declined to comment on the ethics of a politician accepting money for interviews but the human services minister, Michael Keenan, says he would never do such a thing.
An industry insider has told News Corp the money from the interview will be held in a trust for Barnaby’s six-week-old son, Sebastian.
