Barnaby Joyce’s fiancée Vikki Campion recalls the romantic moment the Deputy Prime Minister proposed

Vikki Campion has lifted the lid on her engagement to Barnaby Joyce, describing the heart-melting moment he popped the question with a sapphire and diamond ring.

In an essay published by The Sunday Telegraph, the 36-year-old admitted that she never thought she’d become engaged to Deputy Prime Minister, 54, four years after their relationship began.

‘Great love doesn’t need a ring but I like how it feels,’ Campion wrote.

The Deputy Prime Minister popped the question at Coffs Harbour restaurant Latitude 30, in the NSW’s mid-north coast, on Sunday night.

‘He pretended to drop his phone on the floor, jumped down on both knees as if he was praying, not proposing, and said: “Vikki, will you marry me?” and I melted,’ Campion wrote.

‘Amid rising happy tears, the answer caught in my throat. I threw my arms around him and kissed him. “Always, yes.”‘

While she has not yet shared a photo of her engagement ring, Campion revealed that the design’s centrepiece is a 6.5 carat Australian parti sapphire – a rare stone that can’t be replicated in a lab due to its colour complexity.

The stone was selected from NSW’s New England region, Mr Joyce’s home electorate and the area where the Armidale-based family reside.

The centrepiece is surrounded by diamonds, and set in a band that matches a ring Campion inherited from her grandmother.

It comes after Joyce told The Guardian that he and Campion are ‘very happy’ following their engagement.

‘She is really happy, I am really happy and I guess the boys are happy, but they are just the same, no change there really,’ he said last week.

The politician joked that he would ‘still be at Latitude 30 getting smashed’ had Ms Campion said no.

Mr Joyce said he had intended to propose in Noosa, on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, but the tourist hotspot was completely booked out.

Since announcing the engagement, Mr Joyce said the couple have been ‘overwhelmed’ by the good wishes and ‘thank everyone for them’.

However, he said the their two young sons were ‘oblivious’ to their parents’ exciting news.

‘The boys couldn’t care less, they’re not aware,’ he said, the Daily Telegraph reports.

‘As long as you take them to the pool at the moment they’re happy.’

Rumours of then-married Joyce and Campion’s love affair first surfaced in early 2017.

In December that year, Mr Joyce used the parliamentary debate on same sex marriage to confirm he was no longer with Natalie, his wife of 24 years, with whom he shares four daughters.

News of Joyce and Campion hit the headlines in February 2018 after photos emerged of his former staffer heavily pregnant in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph.

Mr Joyce subsequently resigned as Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader, moving to the backbench, amid pressure to quit due to the relationship and after an unrelated sexual harassment allegation was made against him, which he has strenuously denied.

As the scandal erupted, Campion also left her position at Mr Joyce’s office in April, the same month she gave birth to their first son.

The couple welcomed their second son Thomas in June the following year.

The Turnbull government responded to the Joyce-Campion affair by introducing the infamous ‘bonk ban’ on ministers forming relationships with staff.

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Mr Joyce’s actions as a ‘shocking error of judgement’ that created a ‘world of woe’ for the women in his life.

‘I think we know that the real issue is the terrible hurt and humiliation that Barnaby by his conduct, has visited on his wife, Natalie and their daughters and indeed, his new partner,’ Mr Turnbull said at the time.

‘Barnaby made a shocking error of judgment in having an affair with a young woman working in his office. In doing so, he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us.’

Amid the media frenzy, Joyce and Campion addressed their relationship in a $150,000 tell-all interview with Channel 7.

At the time, critics slammed the politician for the 2018 interview aired on the broadcaster’s Sunday Night program, saying that he shouldn’t have profited from a scandal while in office.

Joyce and Campion later said the money would be held in trust for their then-newborn son Sebastian, with neither of them having access.