Jacqui Lambie

Jacquiline Louise Lambie (born 26 February 1971) is an Australian politician who is the leader and founder of the Jacqui Lambie Network (JLN).

Lambie enlisted in the Australian Army in 1989.

She completed her recruit training while unknowingly pregnant with her first child.

Her pregnancy was not recognised until four months later; army medical officers had attributed her menstruation stopping to the stress of training.

After basic training, she was assigned to the Royal Australian Corps of Transport in 1990.

She remained with the Transport Corps for five years before being transferred to the Royal Australian Corps of Military Police, where she worked for another five years, achieving the rank of Corporal.

During a field exercise in July 1997, Lambie sustained a back injury resulting in long-term detriments to her spine.

After physiotherapy and medical interventions, she was unable to regain operational fitness and was discharged on medical grounds (thoracic pain) in 2000.

This prompted her to pursue a claim for a military pension from the Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA).

She has since been an advocate for veterans with the Returned and Services League of Australia and involved in fundraising with the Burnie Chamber of Commerce, the Country Women's Association and Rotary.

The Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) initially rejected her application for compensation, but subsequently approved it and put her on a military disability pension.

She later applied for compensation for depression related to her back pain, which was also initially rejected.

The DVA hired a private investigation firm to conduct five hours of surveillance on her activities within her home.

On the basis of this surveillance, the department concluded that she was a malingerer, cancelling her military pension and coverage of her medical care.

Lambie fought the department's conclusion for five years, during which time she was accepted for a Centrelink disability pension.

The tribunal's Deputy President, Justice Christopher Wright, concluded that "it is likely that even greater improvement would have been achieved a long time ago if her medical treatments, which were initially funded by the respondent, had not been terminated in 2001".

In 2006, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was about to rule on whether the video evidence was admissible in her case when DVA abandoned its use of the video and accepted that Lambie was entitled to compensation.

Lambie's political involvement began in 2008 when she began working for Tasmanian Labor senator Nick Sherry.

Attempting to seek Liberal preselection after joining the party in 2011, and previously working as a staff member of Labor senator Nick Sherry, Lambie joined the Palmer United Party (PUP), led by Australian billionaire Clive Palmer.

In November 2011, she joined the Liberal Party of Australia and later decided to run for preselection for the Division of Braddon.

She subsequently left the Liberal Party, saying that the Liberals are a "boys' club", and she joined to "infiltrate" them to see what she could learn about politics.

In 2012, Lambie sold her house to help fund her run as an independent, before turning to the newly formed Palmer United Party founded by billionaire Clive Palmer – as she said "I just didn't have the money like the big players did for advertising."

She was elected to the Senate at the 2013 federal election.

In the 2013 federal election, Lambie won Tasmania's sixth Senate seat as a candidate for the Palmer United Party, receiving 6.58% of first preference votes.

She has credited the final result of her win to "the big man upstairs" – referring not to Palmer, but to God: "Once it gets to that point, it's up to God upstairs. There's not much else I can do about it."

Her term began in July 2014.

Lambie received national prominence for her intense grassroots campaign and subsequently her display of aggressive and vociferous parliamentary behaviour, championing issues concerning foreign affairs, veterans' affairs, youth unemployment, and criticism of Islam.

After persistent internal divisions, in November 2014, Lambie resigned from the Palmer United Party to sit in the Senate as an independent.

In May 2015, she formed the Jacqui Lambie Network political party with herself leader.

She was elected to a six-year term in her own right at the 2016 federal election (a double dissolution).

After a recount, she was replaced by Devonport Mayor Steve Martin, who had been second on the JLN ticket in the 2016 federal election.

He survived a challenge to his own eligibility, on a different constitutional ground, but refused to step down so as to create a casual Senate vacancy to which Lambie could be appointed.

She expelled him from the party for disloyalty.

In November 2017, she was revealed to hold Australian-British dual citizenship, having inherited British citizenship from her Scottish-born father.

As part of the parliamentary eligibility crisis, she announced her resignation on 14 November 2017.

She is a Senator for Tasmania since 2019, and was previously a Senator from 2014 to 2017.

Lambie, an Aboriginal Tasmanian, grew up in public housing in Devonport before serving as a corporal in the Australian Army.

Lambie was re-elected to the Senate at the 2019 election, and became a Senator for the second time on 1 July 2019.

Lambie, a Palawa woman, was born in the town of Ulverstone in north-western Tasmania.

Her parents separated when she was 13, and she was raised in a public housing estate in Devonport, attending Devonport High School.