Outrage greeted the revelation in 2018 that staunch advocate for ‘traditional marriage’ Barnaby Joyce cheated on his wife. Tonight, ABC’s Four Corners revealed that Joyce perhaps comprised just the tip of a ‘traditional marriage’ hypocrisy iceberg. Minister Alan Tudge also cheated on his wife during the marriage equality debate.
Four Corners revealed that Tudge conducted an affair with a younger married advisor in 2017. Like Barnaby Joyce, he also campaigned for ‘traditional marriage’. The minister was himself ‘traditionally married’ at the time. Unlike Joyce, Tudge voted for marriage equality, despite his personal opposition, to reflect the vote in his electorate.
Christian Porter
Tonight’s Four Corners also revealed inappropriate behaviour on the part of current Attorney-General Christian Porter. In 2017, a public servant took a photo of Porter drunk in a Canberra bar with a young woman. A young female advisor to Alan Tudge said she saw the married minister kissing the young woman at the bar. She also saw a public servant grab the phone of a journalist to photograph the incident. The advisor alerted Tudge and they went together to ask the journalist to delete the pic. The journalist refused.
Rachelle Miller, Tudge’s advisor, went on to say that she and Tudge cheated on their respective partners in an affair they conducted that year. After the affair ended, Rachelle Miller eventually stopped working in politics due to pressure she felt because of the affair with her older boss.
Traditional marriage hypocrisy iceberg
Tudge claimed during the marriage equality debate that same-sex marriage would weaken ‘traditional marriage’.
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Four Corners that the same-sex marriage debate dripped with hypocrisy.
“There’s no question that some of the most trenchant opponents of same-sex marriage, all in the name of traditional marriage, were at the same time enthusiastic practitioners of traditional adultery.
“As I said many times, this issue of the controversy over same-sex marriage was dripping with hypocrisy, and the pools were deepest at the feet of the sanctimonious.”
Turnbull said he also had concerns about other members of the government he knew were conducting affairs with political staffers at the time.
Hypocrisy from sanctimonious adjudicators of everyone else’s lives is nothing new. In fact, it is now common.
It certainly seems Barnaby Joyce, who preached that marriage equality would destroy ‘traditional marriage’, was no Lone Ranger. He sat atop a much larger iceberg. We look forward to future revelations.
Next, please…
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