Crossbencher Jacqui Lambie has warned One Nation’s “nastiness” is “pushing us towards bloody anarchy” in remarks responding to the party’s cartoon mocking her health battle with vaginal prolapse.
The video shared and produced by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson targets the Albanese government’s proposed digital duty of care designed to bolster online safety for minors and give Australians more control over what they see.
It casts the legislation as an attack on free speech and has a caricature of Senator Lambie supporting the crackdown, saying that One Nation’s cartoon series has “gotta go”.
She adds: “Plus I can’t laugh because of my prolapsed vagina.”
The health condition becomes a running joke, with the character clutching herself every time she gets worked up.
Senator Lambie said on Monday that “if you want to watch Pauline Hanson’s cartoons be my guest”.
“If you want more hatred, more spitefulness in your life, then please do so,” she told ABC radio.
“But what I do know is this: Decent leaders don’t stir up hatred, pushing us towards bloody anarchy, because that’s exactly what she’s doing.
“And all you’re going to end up seeing is rioting on our streets.”
Senator Lambie said she had not asked for the cartoon to be taken down, but she expected those around Senator Hanson, “especially those men”, would intervene “if they had any front whatsoever”.
On the digital duty of care itself, Senator Lambie dismissed concerns that the legislation introduced last week threatened freedoms.
“This is not about Australians’ freedoms,” she said.
“What (the Albanese government is) trying to do is keep people safe and keep your kids safe – that’s what they’re trying to do.”
She added that if the Coalition wanted “to go through down that line with One Nation and say it’s all about your freedoms, you be my guest”.
“But quite frankly, I’d rather be on the other side where I’m trying to keep Australian kids a lot safer than what they are through the rubbish that goes on in social media,” Senator Lambie said.
More to come