The election of Palmer United Party’s Jacqui Lambie to the Senate surprised many. But a 10-year battle with Veterans’ Affairs shows the former soldier is no pushover.
The new senator from Tasmania says she won’t be available for an interview tomorrow because her father will be pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer. Jacqui Lambie offers this information with a slight roll of the eyes, as though this is the last thing she needs right now, but what can you do? Tom Lambie’s oldest child will be there to support him.
The next morning, she arrives at Devonport Magistrates Court in full make-up, wearing an animal-print top and pearl drop earrings, hoping the local media won’t show up. Her father is lean, white-haired and nervous. As far as assaulting a police officer goes, it’s a small-fry case. On December 27 last year, Tom’s wife called police complaining her drunken husband was yelling and swearing and carrying on.
When the police arrived, Tom was furious and pushed a constable out the back door. The court hears a sketch of Tom’s life – decades working as a truck driver, a frozen-shoulder injury, unemployed for the past three years, depressed and in pain. The marriage – his third – was now over, and he was living in a caravan park trying to start again. It’s an everyday Struggle-Street story, and the magistrate shows compassion. No conviction, and a 12-month good-behaviour bond. It’s all over in 20 minutes. Jacqui Lambie smiles and hugs her father. “It’s a wake-up call to my family to pull their heads in,” she says. She’s a senator now, or will be in July when the new Senate sits – her first real job since she was medically discharged from the army 14 years ago. She looks stressed and I offer that the magistrate seemed sympathetic. “She should be,” says Lambie, “she’s had my son up before her about a dozen times.” She rolls her eyes again and laughs.
The Senate that Australians elected last year was full of surprises and Jacqui Lambie, 43, ex-army corporal, single mother of two, broad Australian accent, was one. There’s a new political class heading for Canberra. A handful of outsiders with burning grievances and little or no political experience are about to wield real power in the upper house.
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One wonders what Palmer would think about the affluent paying more taxes, given he’s pledged a reduction in personal income tax for all. “If I don’t agree with something, I’ll stand up. We haven’t had much to disagree on so far, but … I mean, Clive’s a billionaire, I’m the underdog – it’s like chalk and cheese.”
Lambie isn’t the least bit fazed about going to Canberra. She’s not a book learner, she says, but she loves talking to people and finding out what the problems are, and she doesn’t mind asking questions if she doesn’t know something. Her chief of staff will be Rob Messenger, a former LNP member in the Queensland Parliament who, in a familiar story, quit the party to become an independent before joining PUP. He says Lambie’s staff will be “a team of misfits, whistle-blowers and people who have been done over”.
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• AK, in Comments: The sitting of the new senate should bring interesting times and with it some interesting people. From the makeup, it may be a big surprise for the incumbents when they realise they won’t be able to get their way as easily as they have done in the past. I doubt Jackie could do a worse job than the current swill of party empty heads and will probably be a thousand times better. Even though I have no time for PUP, or it’s backer, it may be a good thing to take odds on how long she remains a member of PUP, before becoming an independent. So I wish her all the best and may she and the other independents stand up for the people and not just vested interests.
