Joe Hockey: Former politician and ambassador reportedly splits from wife after 31 years of marriage
Former federal minister and Australian ambassador to the US Joe Hockey has reportedly split from his wife Melissa Babbage after 31 years of marriage.
A source told Market Confidential It was stated that the former politician, who was a North Sydney MP between 1995 and 2016, moved from his and Babbage’s home in the Hunters Hill suburb in Sydney’s northwest.
Mr Hockey is believed to be currently living in a flat in the harborside suburb of Milsons Point.
The couple, who met at the Young Liberals convention in 1991 and married in 1994, have three children: Xavier, Adelaide and Ignatius.
Both Mr Hockey and Ms Babbage, an investment banker who previously worked at Deutsche Bank, reportedly refused to comment when asked about their separation.
Ms. Babbage currently serves as chief financial and operations officer at Bondi Partners Global, Mr. Hockey’s consulting firm, which Mr. Hockey chairs.
Mr Hockey was elected to the North Sydney seat in 1995 and was rewarded with a number of ministerial appointments, including Human Services, Employment and Workplace Relations and Financial Services.
He gained reputation with his speech In Defense of God At the Sydney Institute in 2009 he praised Australia’s “religious diversity” and its “principle of tolerance” towards the country’s Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Following John Howard’s departure from government in 2007, Mr Hockey was considered the “preferred” Liberal leader in polls at the time and threw his hat in the ring to lead the Liberal party at a party room meeting in 2009.
He was eliminated after losing to Liberal heavyweights Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, with the latter elected leader of the party.
Mr Hockey served as treasurer in the Abbott government from 2013 and was photographed smoking a cigar outside parliament in 2014 after delivering a particularly controversial and “tough” budget in which he told the Australian public to do the “heavy lifting” to keep the country’s finances under control.
He was also known for telling first home buyers to “get a good job” to buy a home; but was labeled “insensitive” by opposition colleagues.
“The starting point for a first home buyer is to find a good job that pays well,” Mr Hockey said.
“Then you can go to the bank and get a loan.”
Mr Hockey, a long-standing supporter of the Australian republican movement, was announced in mid-2015 as the leader of a ‘parliamentary friendship group’ focusing on a referendum on an Australian republic.
Mr Hockey resigned from Parliament in 2015 after Malcolm Turnbull sacked Tony Abbott as Prime Minister earlier that year.
He replaced Kim Beazley as US Ambassador in 2016, just months before the shocking election of Donald Trump.
Mr Hockey became known as a “Trump whisperer” and went on the golf course with the US president during his first term, although he backed Joe Biden for President in 2020 after his term as ambassador ended earlier that year.
In 2022, he published an autobiography describing his time in the US: Diplomatic: A Washington memoir.
