Jackie Lambie does a spot-on impression of a bull terrier when she talks tough. Which is all the time, as she is always angry at something whether it be Tony Abbott, tax breaks for millionaires or kale.
Without doubt some people find her a bit scary, loud, bogan, bossy or aggressive. She is no shrinking violet, she’s certainly not waiting around for Edward from Twilight to come and rescue her. Instead she will bear her teeth and kick some butt-ugly butt to get stuff done.
She’s an easy target to lampoon, now that we don’t have Pauline Hansen any more. Jackie Lambie with her 200 hi-vis yellow scarves and her unfiltered and unfettered thought bombs. Her radio interview about her ideal partner being built like Thunder Downunder with a bank balance of Clive Palmer was roundly ridiculed. Her statement that Tony Abbott used his daughters politically was accurate but she was demonised anyway and her other statement about him being a political psychopath was put down by the press corp, they were probably just jealous they hadn’t thought of it.
The press corp don’t really know how to interpret her. They don’t want to be seen to be too sexist, too boganist or too Tasmanian-ist. After all, she knows how to use a gun. They want to be mean, but not too mean, after all she is a PUP, and the media are enthralled by Fat Clive.
So, the media do what they do – pounce on statements about big packages and bank balances, find every utterance she makes about the “puppies”, every barb about Tony Abbott and dress it up as politics when its just run of the mill argey bargey. If she wasn’t Jackie Lambie saying these things, say if it was someone tedious and unknown like say, Darren Chester, it wouldn’t be news.
I get the feeling I don’t fully agree with some of the things Jackie would do if she was Prime Minister for a day. But I do think she should be judged on policies not her sound barks.
And so what if she thinks kale is a carseat or likes big packages, let’s get to policy first before the hi-vis scarves.
Julie's Rant 