Barnaby Joyce – who is paid more than $220,000-a-year by YOU – is called out for skipping one of the last days of Parliament… just weeks after ‘bush bash’ wedding with Vikki Campion

Barnaby Joyce has been called out for skipping the penultimate day of parliament in Canberra – despite a heated debate on one of the National Party’s key issues – to instead join protesters at a rally in Sydney.

The Nationals MP, who recently married his former staffer Vikki Campion in an Outback ceremony, earns more than $220,000 for his role as opposition frontbencher.

His absence from Parliament House did not go unnoticed on Thursday, especially during a heated debate on the Murray Darling Basin Bill, which was ultimately passed by both houses.

National leader David Littleproud protested against the bill and gave an emotional speech on the changes to water buybacks for the regions, describing it as “rock bottom” for these communities.

Labor Senator Tim Ayres, the Assistant Minister for Manufacturing, told Ny Breaking Australia that Mr Joyce was “more interested in war nonsense in the fringe culture than in country towns” where he was elected.

“On the day the Australian government rescued the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, you would think the Nationals would want to be involved in delivering healthy and sustainable water for regional Australia,” he said.

“But instead of sitting in parliament and doing his job, Barnaby Joyce decided to hang out in the middle of Sydney with Craig Kelly, Alan Jones and their anti-renewable energy friends.”

Mr Joyce joined Mr Kelly and Jones on the steps of the NSW Parliament to protest the federal Labor government’s plans to massively expand renewable energy in Australia.

In footage shared on Mr Joyce’s social media channels, the high-profile politician was seen wandering through a crowd of protesters before standing to make his own speech.

“We’re being ripped off,” he told the cheering crowd.

‘Wind farms are not farms. Potatoes are grown on farms. They raise livestock. They grow carrots.

“They are not an ecological solution, they are an environmental catastrophe.”

Mr Joyce joined Kelly and Jones on the steps of the NSW Parliament to protest the federal Labor government’s plans to massively expand renewable energy in Australia

The 56-year-old two-time deputy prime minister tied the knot with his former adviser, Ms Campion, on November 12 in an outdoor wedding at his sprawling estate.

Voters took to the comments section of Joyce’s video from the Sydney event wondering why he wasn’t in Parliament.

One wrote: ‘Barnaby why aren’t you in Parliament today like all working honest workers?

“That’s why you get paid. The average worker doesn’t have time to disappear whenever he wants.”

And another added: ‘Shouldn’t you be in parliament doing your job?’

There is only one joint sitting day left in the calendar year: next Thursday.

The Senate will continue working throughout the week, but MPs do not have to be in Canberra.

The 56-year-old two-time deputy prime minister tied the knot with his former adviser, Ms Campion, on November 12 in an outdoor wedding at his sprawling estate.

Vikki Campion wore a strapless cream dress with black cowboy style boots (pictured)

On the first day of the hearing after the wedding, Mr Joyce was again absent from Question Time, although he is said to have postponed any honeymoon arrangements until after the term had ended and work had calmed down.

In December 2017, Joyce used the parliamentary debate on gay marriage to confirm that he had not been together with his wife for 24 years.

His affair with Ms Campion was subsequently confirmed in February 2018, when she was two months away from giving birth to their first son Sebastian.

Once their relationship came to light, Joyce resigned as deputy prime minister and leader of the Nationals.

Then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull blasted Joyce for what he called a “shocking error of judgement.”

It led to Turnbull introducing a so-called ‘bonking ban’ for coalition MPs to prevent them having sex with their ministerial staff.

Ms Campion has spoken candidly about their affair, previously admitting their relationship was ‘not perfect’ but insisting she has no regrets about the drama surrounding their infidelity.

‘Even until the day he said in parliament that I was his partner, I didn’t believe that was right. He said he would be there in the labor and delivery unit and I didn’t believe that either,” she previously said.

“You trade your job for hard looks, paparazzi and paranoia, schoolyard rumors that emerge in the Ultimo newsrooms, many without a grain of truth, and you don’t answer the door again,” she continued.

‘He asked me a thousand times: ‘Would you like to experience it all again?’ And my answer has always been yes.”