Jacqui Lambie delivered an emotional resignation to senate this afternoon, barely keeping it together as she thanked her father whose Scottish heritage saw the senator ineligible for parliament.
“I love my father to death and I do not blame him for this,” she said through tears.
“He has done nothing for which to apologise and he has been my strongest supporter, my loudest cheer squad, and my closest advisor.
“It’s not because of him that I’m leaving this place. It’s because of him that I’m here in the first place,” she said, her voice breaking.
The outspoken former senator then referred to the work she’d done for groups often overlooked and unrepresented in parliament.
“I’ve worked hard to be a voice for those who don’t often get much of a voice in this chamber,” she began.
WATCH: Lambie protect welfare recipients, pensioners and veterans.
“Unlike some in this place, who say they are there for the battler, I actually refused to deliver the budget into surplus by driving struggling families into further poverty,” she said in a thinly veiled attack on Pauline Hanson’s ‘Battler Bus’.
“Veterans fight hard for this country, they shouldn’t have to fight their government when they get back.
“Politicians on both side of the house talk about helping those on welfare without ever having to choose between spending your welfare payment on school fees and school clothes,” Lambie, whose time on welfare is well documented, added.
She also warned the government against taking advantage of her absence from the senate floor.
“The government may be tempted to use my absence as an opportunity, but to do so would be a mistake. Because though I may not be here, the Jacqui Lambie network should still be represented.
“The Jacqui Lambie Network does not support the government’s agenda to strip away the power of workers to stick up for themselves,” she asserted, detailing the ways in which she would vote were she to remain.
Lambie is unsure what her next move is both politically and personally, but is adamant she won’t be joining state politics up in Canberra.
