Engaging in a bit of deflection there Shadow. As far as I'm aware Shortens been on the quite side on this.

Your man Barnyard might be tagged a hypocrite, championing the sanctity of heterosexual marriage during the SSM debate, while having an extramarital affair at the same time. Claims to be a practising Catholic, full of piety on a Sunday, but the rest of the week, well you know what.

Barnaby Joyce is a blatant hypocrite and stands condemned. Supporting the sanctity of marriage between a man and a women, denying LGBTIQ people the same right while he is playing Captain Catholic alongside his other hypocritical adulterer school Mate (Iggys) Tony Abbot and simultaneously having an extramarital affair, destroying his family and bringing the institution he so loves into disrepute.

He should resign. There is no penalty strong enough for him and all this was kept from the good burghers of New England. No wonder country areas struggle with people like him representing them.

I don't think there should be restrictions on reporting his demise and that of his family. He is part of a government that doesn't think twice about the demise of other families struggling to make ends meet while he cuts their penalty rates and he earns How much...!!? He is part of a government that incarcerates people on remote detention centres, splitting up their families so why should anyone give a damn what happens to him and his family? Of course a politician’s public life should be public. It shows them for the disgusting hypocritical slime they really are.

ON the other side there may be stuff to come out about Shorten and I don’t think he would welcome attention on politicians' private lives given his own chequered past.

Two sides to the coin in my opinion.

On the one hand I think being too exposed to the public's scrunity is harmful to anyone. You can't please everyone, which often means celebrities try to give off a certian persona to the press and media as a whole, regardless of how they are privitely. The less privicy they have the more harm I think it does to them, to their personal lives and their families, and possibly to how well they do their job. I use celebrities as an example because it shows how often their lives fall apart. I assume haaving no privacy has a part in that.

On the other hand I do agree that politicians need at least some scrutiny. They make the laws, and how often there is corruption in politics they need to be held accountable. But I don't believe giving up their privacy completely is healthy for anyone. And I don't want an added unhealthy element affecting those who run the governments. So I'd say they have less right to privacy. Not no right to it though.

Joyce is no celebrity!

Paul,

I have always supported SSM partially because so often hetero marriages are a shoddy example, so you are largely preaching to the converted.

The point is that the media is treating BJ as though he is the first polly to have an affair. The example I gave is of BS who as a cabinet minister had a far more damaging affair and has been accused of rape, and the press has been largely silent.

So my question is why has the standard on privacy suddenly changed? Is it because the community has changed or because it was a coalition MP?

I don't want to make anybody pregnant, but at 92 I still wish I could do it. I condemn Barnaby Joyce, but I don't share his politics. If I did share his politics I might say his private life is none of my business. I merely hope he doesn't serve too many of his constituents. I consider population growth a great problem, but babies are generally cute.