Sometimes you just have to 'suck it up': Jacqui Lambie's departing gift to Australia

Sometimes you just have to ‘suck it up’: Jacqui Lambie’s departing gift to Australia

The citizenship saga has claimed another scalp, with independent Senator Jacqui Lambie announcing she’ll be resigning from the Federal Parliament today.

But true to form, she leaves with some frank words for Australia.

“We should not change the constitution just because some of us fell down on section 44,” she told Tasmanian radio.

“We’ve got to suck it up.”

And in case you thought otherwise, she made it clear that “you can’t keep a bloody Lambie down.”

She’ll be having “another swing at it” at some point, adding the Australian Parliament is in such “shambles” that more politicians will be resigning. “It’s going to not end well.”

“It’s going to be an absolute cluster.”

Don’t we know it.

Lambie’s the third woman to go due to citizenship troubles, following former Greens Senator Larissa Waters and former Nationals Senator Fiona Nash.

The proportion of women to go in this crisis is particularly concerning when you consider the already low number of women in the Australian Parliament.

Lambie’s Dad was born in Scotland, putting her in the category of being  entitled to British citizenship by descent. She said she had made enquiries into her status with the UK Home Office yesterday.

Earlier this year, Lambie gave one of the best speeches of the current Parliament, breaking down while sharing her personal experiences living off a disability support pension for seven years, while raising two kids as a single mother. She described what it was like living at the “bottom of the crap pile”.

Last week, Lambie tweeted, “Lest we forget the Centrelink Witch Hunt” asking how many ex politicians on pensions are dual citizens.

Lambie said this morning that the first thing she will be doing after officially resigning (expected around lunchtime today) will be renouncing her UK citizenship.

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