Jacqui Lambie on Abbie Chatfield podcast: ‘Don’t eat bloody Tasmanian salmon’
Jacqui Lambie is “punching down on Tasmania” after calling for an Australian boycott of Tassie salmon, Senator Jonno Duniam says. It comes as Lambie predicts supermarket giants are “this close” to pulling it from shelves. LATEST >>
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Jacqui Lambie is “punching down on Tasmania” after calling for an Australian boycott of Tassie salmon, Senator Jonno Duniam says.
Senator Lambie appeared on influencer Abbie Chatfield’s popular podcast this week where she explained the saga of Tasmanian salmon farming, finishing the hour-long chat urging listeners to say no to farmed salmon from the Apple Isle.
The firebrand politician also predicted the supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths were close to pulling the item off their shelves.
Shadow Minister for Fisheries and Tasmanian Senator Jonno Duniam said Lambie was “chasing cheap votes on the mainland”.
“It’s all well and good to have a view on Tasmanian salmon farming, as wrong-headed as Senator Lambie’s view is,” Mr Duniam said.
“But Senator Lambie’s call for a boycott of Tasmanian salmon is a step way too far.
“Senator Lambie is punching down on Tasmania and Tasmanian salmon workers in the pursuit of cheap votes in the mainland states for Senate candidates.
“Her trading of Tasmanian jobs for interstate votes makes Senator Lambie no better than the Greens.”
Salmon Tasmania invited It’s A Lot podcast host and influencer Abbie Chatfield to Tasmania to learn more about the industry.
“The 5000-plus workers whose jobs rely on the Tasmanian salmon industry have every right to be disgusted by Senator Lambie jumping on a Sydney-based podcast to take cheap shots at her home state,” a Salmon Tasmania spokesperson said.
“We invite Abbie Chatfield to come down to Tassie to meet our workers and learn about the industry first-hand instead of promoting this nonsense.”
Chatfield prefaced the episode by saying while she “doesn’t agree with everything Lambie says or votes on”, she is “equally as shocked when I find myself nodding along to a viral clip of Lambie saying she’s had a gutful of corruption, or greed, or salmon farming”.
During the hour-long interview, which covered everything from Lambie’s political beginnings to mental health, copping social media abuse and her thoughts on Donald Trump, the podcast host asked Lambie to explain the controversy surrounding Tasmanian salmon farming.
“You know what, Mures, our biggest restaurant down there, very well known for their seafood … said we’re not taking any more Tasmania salmon,” Lambie replied, with Chatfield gasping in response.
“She’s on. Yeah, she’s on,” Lambie said.
The senator said she “used to be a big salmon supporter” but had “seen it decline really badly over the last five years”, explaining the plight of the Maugean Skate in Macquarie Harbour and the reports of salmon and waste washing up on Tasmania’s pristine beaches.
“You show up on Bruny Island (and) there’s always a dirty filthy f**king fishnet sitting there with salmon in them,” Lambie said.
“And Tasmanians have had enough because what they’re going to do is kill brand Tasmania.
“People come because it is Tasmania. It is clean and green. It’s much bigger than salmon. It is taking Tasmania out and I’m not going to tolerate it.”
She called on the multinational companies “making an absolute motza out of our salmon” to move their pens further out to sea and away from the coast’s beaches.
Chatfield asked what could be done to highlight the issue on a wider scale.
“So should we boycott salmon? What do we do? Who do we buy from?” Chatfield asked.
“Yeah, don’t eat bloody Tasmanian salmon,” Ms Lambie said.
“I’ll tell you what, (in) another couple of weeks, I reckon Woolies and Coles, they’re feeling the pressure down there as well, I know they’re about this far from pulling salmon.”
Lambie urged influencers to “keep the pressure up” and “get it on your Insta feed”.
“We don’t want that bloody salmon farming in Tasmania, they can piss off.”
Lambie tackles Trump’s trade war
Asking Lambie about her political beginnings, Chatfield said a lot of young and progressive people viewed the senator as “very, very aggressively right-wing” because of her early association with Clive Palmer, yet progressive when she talks about things that matter to everyday Australians.
“First of all, it’s not about left and right, it’s about right and wrong,” Lambie said.
With talk turning to Donald Trump and his tariffs on Australia, Lambie called it “a slap in the face” having “stood with them in World War 2”, the Middle East and will be fighting alongside the US military for the next 20 years.
“The rest of the world refers to us as a deputy sheriff, and basically they’ve thrown us under the bus just like that,” Lambie said.
“There is no mateship, there is no loyalty.
“I’ll call him out today. You’ve used our veterans time in, time out, and you have used and abused them. And this is the way you treat them, you throw them under the bus.
“To me, he’s a pig. He’s an absolute pig. He’s a pig.
“He has no compassion, and I can tell you what, he has no idea. He’s going to run America into the ground.”
Chatfield asked if Lambie thought if Trump’s changes and starting a trade war would lead to a third world war.
“It’s as scary as hell,” Lambie said, in reference to Trump being “a groupie” of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“There’s other stuff around the world that’s getting untidy as well, just civil war and all the rest. And then now you’ve got the trade wars about to begin – so you just wonder if it’s going to be a big collide here.”
Asked if she thought Australia would ever cut alliances with the US, Lambie was blunt.
“They’ve already cut alliances. They’ve cut us out. This is a thanks for standing by them … especially since the Vietnam War,” Lambie said.
“You know, and having all these alliances and all that, he just threw that in the trash. He threw that in the trash within a split second.
“He has no idea what loyalty is and what mateship is. And that’s what Australia is all about, and he has none of it, let alone patriotism.
“So if anyone talks about being a patriot, he’s full of f**king shit. He wouldn’t know what a patriot was. He’s everything bad. He’s everything bad.”
Lambie’s episode of It’s A Lot comes days after Chatfield was cleared by the Australian Electoral Commission following comments by Liberal senator Jane Hume that some influencers were “potentially being paid to produce political social media”.
Chatfield was investigated by the AEC after having prime minister Anthony Albanese and Greens leader Adam Bandt on the podcast – but was found not to have breached any electoral laws.
Originally published as Jacqui Lambie on Abbie Chatfield podcast: ‘Don’t eat bloody Tasmanian salmon’
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