Jacqui Lambie on ...
ICE: This is a national crisis which will only be solved by tough love, plenty of mental health care and a crackdown on the organised criminals
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GOVERNMENT: I think the state of Australian politics at the moment is embarrassing. We are a laughing stock on the international scene.
HERSELF: I think I’d be the only woman in the crowd who has fired an M60 machine gun and has a licence to drive a tank
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SHE is the woman who wants to shake up politics and has called on her peers to put their boots on, walk outside and start talking to the Australian people.
For Senator Jacqui Lambie, change starts with action, calling the tough shots and speaking honestly about the issues that matter.
Ms Lambie arrived in Port Macquarie on Wednesday and she had a message for the "no bullshit" women she believes should be running the country - because "they’d get things done".
She was the special guest speaker at the 2015 National CWA of Australia Conference and top of her agenda was ice – a national crisis, she says, that will continue to take the lives of our youth until the criminals who poison our children are taken off the streets.
Ms Lambie reacted emotionally to the positive response she had received since sharing her own personal story of her son’s addiction to ice. She also hit out at those who said she’d ‘thrown her son under a bus’ by mentioning his addiction before the Senate as well as the media slurs implying she was a bad mother.
It’s a “wicked drug” she said, and time the Australian government took the epidemic seriously.
“Overall the feedback I received was very caring and supportive and many people shared with me their tragic and terrible stories,” Ms Lambie said.
“Not all feedback was kind and I expected that criticism because not all people know what it is like to have a child on a drug that takes over their body and mind. Some went out of their way to write hurtful comments.”
She said she could quote statistics about the impacts of ice, but it does nothing to reveal the lived terror being experienced by families, police officers, paramedics and health workers every day across the nation.
“My main message is that all politicians and journalists have to rethink and change our attitude to this drug because it is different to any other drug we have ever seen in this history of humankind,” she told the 150-strong national CWA delegation.
“There is no room for experimentation with ice – one hit and it will hook and very quickly you will find you have an evil drug which makes your son or daughter angry 24/7 and become a danger to themselves and to those nearest to them.”
Ms Lambie is calling for immediate action to introduce an involuntary detox program with suitable facilities and resources to hit the addiction with force.
To some, I will always be that mother who threw her son under the bus in the Senate…or the annoying independent who’s not qualified to be in the Senate because I’m supposedly uneducated – which I can tell you doesn’t worry me.
- SENATOR JACQUI LAMBIE
“There is no choice. All governments must work closely together, properly resource and start detox facilities if we are to save generations from this misery.
“To some, I will always be that mother who threw her son under the bus in the Senate…or the annoying independent who’s not qualified to be in the Senate because I’m supposedly uneducated – which I can tell you doesn’t worry me.
“Someone has to speak out and talk some common sense in this bloody parliament because the lives of our sons and daughters and their grandchildren depend on it.
“This is a national crisis which will only be solved by tough love, plenty of mental health care and a crackdown on the organised criminals who make, sell, profit from and poison our children with this dangerous substance.”
Ms Lambie said a reintroduction of national service would provide young people with the direction and stability they need to make the right choices in life.
The CWA delegation voted unanimously to call on all levels of government to adequately resource support services to address the effects of the drug.
Ms Lambie, a single mother of two and proud Aussie digger for 10 years before being medically discharged, said politics is her way of making a difference.
She said like the strong women of the CWA, who have a proud 70-year history of driving change for rural and remote regions of Australia, she, too, lives her life by the philosophy of giving back what you receive.
“I think I’d be the only woman in the crowd who has fired an M60 machine gun and has a licence to drive a tank,” she laughed. “One lesson I’ve learned in politics so far is that an M60 and a tank would come in handy.
“I admit I’ve made mistakes and when you get knocked down you just have to get back up again.
“These women here today are leaders in our country. They are no bullshit women – put them in politics and we might get something done.
“I think the state of Australian politics at the moment is embarrassing. We are a laughing stock on the international scene. It’s time for us to clean up our own backyard and that needs to start with employment.
“The people who make it, mine it, grow it and show it are our primary wealth creators.
“I want our politicians to get out there with their boots on and see first-hand what is actually going on in this country.
“I’m just getting on with it.”