Lambie labels One Nation cartoons 'absolutely disgusting'

0:00You may recall Tasmanian Senator Jackie Lamby told the Senate about the medical battle behind her five-month absence from Parliament House. Let's take another listen. If I was like the majority of female veterans, I would have had to wait for Deviator Prudmiglheim and then I would have to search and hope and hope like hell that there would be a gynecologist who would accept the low rate that was paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was a very strong speech in the Senate. Senator Lamby shared her experience of a vaginal and bladder ploy lapse, which she said was directly linked to back injuries from her time serving in the Australian Army. Senator Lamby also used her speech to draw attention to the government's contentious proposed $5,000 cap on veterans' allied health spending, which many veterans advocate groups are protesting. Jackie Lamby's independent Senator for Tasmania and joins me in the studio this morning.

1:00Senator, welcome back to breakfast. Thank you very much. It has been a while. As we're hearing you spike on the Senate floor about your personal medical experience, I just want to listen back to another part of your speech if that's all right. I'm not alone. This is a condition suffered by one in 12 Australian women, but we can't be sure about those numbers because we don't keep accurate data. That's shocking in itself. One of the most common and awful conditions that can be caused by childbirth and we don't keep accurate data. And when it comes to our female veterans, it's even worse. A survey of nearly 500 female veterans who have completed a minimum of six months of active duty, found that two-thirds reported pelvic health concerns, including 12% who reported pelvic organ collapse. What sort of response have you had from veterans and the wider community from that speech? Well, first of all, I've had no response to apartment depictions and fears, all defense for the women serving and the women that are finished, which is gut-ratching in itself, but oh my goodness me.

2:02I tell you what, those women were on the march out there. I've opened a whole new spot here, I think. There is even coming through the airports, women now going past me, going, thanks very much. It's about time. When can we get our help? I think the biggest thing to come out of this, which is really rarer me, this is the unintended consequences. I've got gynecologist ringing me and GPs out there that specialise in this saying, my goodness, may I list just doubled, which is great. Great for women, they're going to come forward. They're not embarrassed, they're going to do that, but we can't move this. So these waiting lists have been going on for years and years. Some people are taking three, four, especially in the public system, three to five years to get this fixed. So that's where we're at, apparently. We are very short of obstetricians out there. That's one of the bigger problems. But seriously, something needs to be done about this. I understand the government has spent millions of dollars or putting millions of dollars forward, but it's never, it's not going to be near enough. What we need to do is get these waiting lists down.

3:02On broader issues, some veterans are very concerned about looming changes to the way in which the Department of Veterans Affairs manages access to allied health care. You used your speech last month to call for the government to abandon its plans to impose this proposed $5,000 cap on allied health care for veterans. Have you seen any indication from the government that it's seriously considering a change here? Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I just, I've just found the whole arrogant situation here on veterans. This is what really bothers me. They're just very disconnected to what is going on in the veteran community. But I can tell you, me going through this, because I've been doing it over the last 12 months. Obviously, I've had three separate surgeries. I've had one pop and go after another. And that's been very difficult. And if I'm using my cap properly, right now, I can't be bothered with DVM. I'm just paying out my own money, but a lot of veterans don't have that sort of stuff. Some of those veterans, if they were going through what I'm going through, and then trying to keep down a job and having these surgeries,

4:04having all the physio, trying to get back on their feet, I can tell you now if they were using this properly and what they were using, they would go through that cap in five weeks. Not what they're saying. So that would be five weeks. Why do we need to? Because it's somebody else's fault providers were ripping the department off. Why are we paying the consequences for that? It's also the moral injury. There's also, I mean, nobody trusts the Department of Veterans Affairs. They still don't trust them. They haven't for a long time. So I have to ask, why would you put more moral injury on top of these veterans? I don't think they understand, Sally, that the point here is that some of these guys, when they're down and out like that, it takes one just one little thing like that, the tips and over, and that's it. They're going to take their own lives. That's how it works out there. Let's look at a couple of other issues. The government's proposed digital duty of care, draft laws were required platforms to reduce foreseeable harms or face fines. They also forced social media sites to let Australians to opt in or out of algorithms. Would you like to see the government go any further?

5:07The government can be a lot farther, a lot further. You know, they'd be doing something with those loot boxes. And what I'd like both those major parties to do is actually come out and say that they won't be taking any donations from Big Tech to do or into the future. On a separate issue, early this morning, I was speaking with Liberal Front Bencher Andrew Hastie, and asked about a one-nation cartoon video that repeatedly describes Andrew Hastie as a traitor. This is what he had to say. She's also cast a massive slur on veterans around the country who think that Australian soldiers should hold high standards of conduct on the battlefield. It's actually a tack on veterans, not just a tack on me. What do you think of that? Oh, absolutely. Look, I love Andrew to death and he doesn't tack on a veteran. What she's doing in those cartoons is absolutely disgusting. They are full of bloody violence. I mean, how people can watch that rubbish is beyond me, but attacking Andrew Hastie, a veteran that is served in an Afghanistan war or any other veteran is the lowest eduacom possibly do. That woman is nothing less than a bloody coward.

6:07She always has been and she always will be. She wouldn't last one day in that goddamn uniform. Leave our veterans alone, Hanson, and I'll tell you something else to those veterans out there. Don't you forget, she held us off for that Royal Commission four months, that woman, because she didn't think we were good enough to have a Royal Commission. So I remind you about that this morning. Pauline Hanson has said that, quote, regarding the led to comments about Andrew Hastie, I'm not calling him a traitor to his country. Does that make it better? No, it makes it no better at all. She's running around cartoons calling a veteran a traitor. She's disgusting. Like I said, she's the lowest bit of life you can possibly come from with that woman. I tell you what, you're seeing her true colors start to shine now. You watch this, you Australian people. Here we go. He comes, Coward Hanson. What needs to happen? I think what she should do is instead of saying, it's everybody else's, these cartoons, those cartoons that she's running out there, they are disgusting. They're absolutely disgusting and she should remove that one of Hastie down right now to day.

7:10In any veteran out there thinking about voting for one nation or standing for them, I tell you what, you had better think twice. Just finally before we finish up, what do you think of one nation's superannuation proposal, greater access to super earlier? Oh, goodness me. Isn't this just another brain fart from one nation? So let me tell you this. A 30-year-old earning 90,000, we've received an extra 2700 year before tax, or about just over $8,000 over three years. But in your retirement for doing that, you are going to lose $87,000. I can tell you for someone that had no super at 44 who took their super out to use for medical and whatever else I needed to use to fight the Department of Veterans Affairs at 44. And many women out there have got stuff all in their super at 50, telling them and telling us to do that is disgusting. I'm sorry, I want to do some aged care home to go to. I want to be able to live in retirement in a house and not sitting there on the street like

8:10many aged pensioners are. That's what I want to see and she's driving. That's what she's driving. All Pauline Hanson wants is just chucking things out there. It's all about social media and just straighting it's a finally starting to wake up to one nation and Pauline Hanson. Senator Jackie Lamby, independent senator for Tasmania, thank you for coming in this morning. Thank you so much for having me on.