Karen Brown Photography
Paddy Manning on the road with Senator Jacqui Lambie:
Jacqui Lambie, at the wheel of a Toyota Prado with her name and face plastered across it, picks me up in Hobart at 7.30am sharp. On the drive out of town, the Tasmanian senator says she is “running on empty” after a 10-year political stint in which she hasn’t taken a holiday for longer than two weeks.
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On the day she picks me up Lambie’s focus is firmly on a local Tasmanian issue. At lunchtime, after hastily applying her makeup in the car park next to Hobart Town Hall, the vet once known as ‘GI Jac’ delivers a typically combative speech at an all-star rally against a proposal to build a $1 billion AFL stadium at Hobart’s Macquarie Point.
Lambie is the final speaker of a long lineup. The MC, independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie jokes about what lies ahead: “I suspect Jacqui has had a gutful of this stadium!”