Jacqui Lambie denies Pauline Hanson directly apologised over Please Explain cartoon

Independent senator Jacqui Lambie has denied Pauline Hanson directly apologised over an episode of the One Nation leader’s Please Explain series, which crudely made fun of the veteran’s health issues.

Senator Hanson initially defended the cartoon, which joked about Senator Lambie’s experience with vaginal prolapse – a condition she revealed during a fiery Senate speech about veterans’ health reforms.

Later, the One Nation leader told News24 she “does apologise for that” and that the cartoon “does bear my name and I’ve got to take responsibility for that”.

Asked about the incident on ABC’s Insiders on Sunday, Senator Lambie denied she had received a direct apology from the One Nation leader.

“No, there has been no direct apology,” she said.

Senator Lambie claimed the only reason Senator Hanson would have apologised was because of the Tasmanian Senator’s social media following and that Senator Hanson “must be getting smashed”.

However, Senator Lambie said she was “not interested in apologies”.

The long-time independent said she did not “have a relationship with Pauline Hanson”.

“I have a very good one with (One Nation senator) Malcolm Roberts and I’ve been very grateful for that over the years,” she said.

“I’ve worked with Pauline in the past when we had the balance of power.

“We found that very, very difficult from an office point of view, and I’m not the only one.

“She would tell you she is doing one thing, and that’s five minutes beforehand, and you walk into the Senate to take a vote and she is on the other side.”

Senator Lambie said there was “too much flip-flopping going on”.

“Pauline can go and do whatever Pauline wants to do. That’s fine, go and do that,” she said.

“But I wish people would have a good look. If you think Pauline Pauline Hanson can step in and run the country and fix all your problems overnight, you are terribly disillusioned.”

Senator Lambie put the rise of One Nation down to people being “angry” and living under “financial strain”.

“When your head is full of financial strain and your head is full of fog, you do really silly things and you don’t think about things properly,” she said.

“And a lot of that is what is causing all that chaos out of there.”

Senator Lambie said changes to migration would hit regional areas of her state.

“If you are going to do deals on immigration make sure we have enough in the rural and regional areas.

Senator Lambie warned she had not seen financial strain like “this since COVID days” and backed again calls for a gas export tax.