A new Canberra star is born

She has not arrived in the national capital yet but the media delight is already showing through. Tasmanian Senator elect Jacqui Lambie gave a headline grabbing performance on 7.30 last night. From 1 July she will provide the Palmer United Party with a wonderful second string to Clive.

Goodness knows what she will end up saying but what a spectacular debut:

SARAH FERGUSON: You said that the Federal Budget proves that Liberals are – and I’ll quote you – gutless sycophants led by uncaring psychopaths. On reflection, did you go too far calling them psychopaths?

JACQUI LAMBIE: No, I don’t think so, I don’t think so at all. I think when it comes to Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott that – I mean, the truth be said, they’re nothing less than a pair of deceitful, lying, political politicians and that’s exactly what they’ve done: they’ve been deceitful and they’ve lied to the public and they’ve lied to the nation.

SARAH FERGUSON: Psychopath is a pretty strong term though.

JACQUI LAMBIE: Well, I’m just saying that politically they’re like they’re psychopathic. It’s like they’re running round like chooks with their heads cut off. And I just do not think that brings in a good budget. They’re like they’re hitting the panic buttons, but we don’t need to hit the panic buttons. We have a triple A rating, for goodness sake. It’s like, “Calm down there, cowboy Joe, calm down. You’re coming out with all guns blazing and you are hitting welfare like there’s no tomorrow,” and that is not the answer.

And then a little touch up the bracket for the banks:

SARAH FERGUSON: The Treasurer made it clear today that if you and your other minor party colleagues resist all of these changes in the Budget, you’re going to be talking about billions of dollars that you will need to make up in revenue. Do you accept that that revenue – the revenue equation in the Australian budget must be changed?

JACQUI LAMBIE: Well, I accept that the four banks are making, you know, $30 billion worth of profit on a yearly basis, and if you spread that through the 23 million people give or take here in Australia, that ends up being a $1,300 every man, woman and child that is living in Australia, so why aren’t we hitting people like the big banks? You know, when $12 billion of this budget’s been handed down and it’s hilting welfare, once again, that’s not the answers and that’s not making for a smart economic future for our nation.

SARAH FERGUSON: Senator-elect, can you just explain what you mean by taking more money from the banks? Are you talking about higher taxes on the banks?

JACQUI LAMBIE: Well, you know, for somebody that makes $30 billion between those four banks annually, then maybe it’s about time we looked at over avenues and that would certainly be one I’d be prepared to look at.

SARAH FERGUSON: And would you just be precise about what you mean about those other avenues? How would you collect that extra revenue from the banks?

JACQUI LAMBIE: Well, you’d put extra taxes on the banks, but you would make sure that that’s not passed down to the consumer. You would put in legislation so it was that tight it wasn’t passed down to the consumer and the big banks that are making all these profits will be paying more into the country.

Politics surely is going to be fun.