Canberra: Barnaby Joyce has declared the gift of a free rental property in Armidale in his pecuniary interest register and is believed to be living there with his new partner, his former media adviser, Vikki Campion.
Australia’s deputy prime minister declared the gift on January 3 following his re-election to the seat of New England in December. He did not reveal the address or who provided the house.
Under the section for gifts, he says: “Post election residual of six month tenancy on Armidale premises.”
While he was a candidate in the December byelection, the free rent would class as a political donation during the campaign period, but would not necessarily need to be declared unless its value exceeded $13,900.
The Australian newspaper revealed on Saturday that Joyce and Campion were residing together in a townhouse in Armidale, which it said was provided free by a local businessman, Greg Maguire.
The house identified by the Australian was billed in a recent real estate advertisement as within a boutique, lifestyle precinct and “quite simply, the most superior residential project ever undertaken in Armidale”.
Maguire, who owns the Powerhouse hotel in Armidale and a transport business in Tamworth, has been friends with Joyce for years, and has a long involvement in New England politics.
In 2004, he was named in a Senate inquiry as having been the intermediary who had sought to get the independent Tony Windsor to retire from politics.
Maguire had asked Tony Windsor what it would take to consider leaving politics and whether he would be interested in a diplomatic or trade posting overseas, Windsor’s campaign manager, Stephen Hall, had told the Senate inquiry. The matter was referred to the federal police but no charges were laid.
