Peter Campion lives in Tolga, to the north of Atherton in Queensland. As the father of Member for New England Barnaby Joyce's partner Vikki, he was pleased to be able to voice his support for the politician following the Barnaby's recent pre-selection victory.
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He said even in Northern Queensland, he was involved in the lead-up speculation surrounding the New England Nationals Branch decision to re-endorse Barnaby.
"I will give Barnaby any support he needs, and obviously, with another family to deal with he needs a lot of support," he said.
Peter is a proud grandfather for the third time and his pride in his second grandson is obvious. He thought Sebastian Joyce helped heal a big rift with his daughter Vikki, and had an amazing personality.
Even at six-months you can recognise it.
- Peter Campion
"The razor sharp intellect this kid has, and his ability to bond with strangers; he's amazing," Peter said.
"He's extremely special just because of who he is. Just because of how he's developing. Not to say the other grandkids aren't amazing, but we see them all the time."
Peter said the rift with Vikki pre-dated Barnaby by a number of years.
"The wife's not really surprised that we had that rift because we're both so very similar. Very strongly opinionated, very well informed on a range of issues, and "likes" tend to repel sometimes," he said.
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"So we had this blue. She actually had another boyfriend between the one I last saw her with and the one I next saw her with, which was Barnaby.
"He's the least offensive boyfriend, defacto or whatever you want to call it, that she's ever had, and he's certainly produced a very fine specimen of human being."
Peter is a strong, man-made climate change denialist and anti-abortionist who believes the Coalition should be dissolved for the sake of the Nationals. He believes democracy needs to be prevented from slipping into the hands of the global socialists running the UN.
Peter said he was misrepresented by the media.
"I was misquoted in that early media coverage because my target was the incomparably stupid and damaging leadership of Malcolm Turnbull," he said.
"I was only p***ed with Barnaby in a very mild way because I'd made the effort when my wife was estranged from her father to go and sort that out, but he hadn't. But to be fair, he was busy. These things happen."
Peter was properly introduced to his son-in-law during September when Barnaby travelled to North Queensland to meet the family. Their reconciliation was picked up and reported by local papers throughout the region.
"When the Cairns Post heard about it ... because I am so well-known up here from my fire brigade career and my writing career, which actually goes back 40 years in letters to the editor, they gave the Barnaby reconciliation story the front page," he said.
In the New England Electorate it remained widely unknown that Peter's threatened slow roasting of Barnaby seemed to have actually turned into that nice chat he had predicted.
Peter said he got along with Barnaby like a house on fire.
"He listened very intently to my lectures on the impossibility of the so-called CO2 induced global warming," he said.
