Jacqui Lambie steps up fight for military pay

JACQUI Lambie has stepped up her fight to improve defence pay, saying she’ll reject all Government bills if the Prime Minister doesn’t budge.

Senator Jacqui Lambie Portrait

JACQUI Lambie wants to make a personal plea to Prime Minister Tony Abbott for improvements to the stingy Defence pay decision.

But the Government has made clear it will not budge, which means the newly independent senator will sideline herself from much of Senate business.

Senator Lambie has vowed never to vote for Government legislation until the 1.5 per cent a year pay decision is increased.

She said today she expects to have talks with Prime Minister Tony Abbott soon on the wages and conditions of the military, but was warned by parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer Steve Ciobo there will be no change.

“The gate’s closed, the horse has gone,” Mr Ciobo told Sky News today.

If she sticks to her vow, Senator Lambie, who yesterday became an independent after an acrimonious split from the Palmer United Party, will effectively rule herself out of any negotiations over Government legislation.

The Government will have to find the six cross bench votes it would need to defeat Labor and the Greens from the remaining nine crossbenchers.

And she could be torn by any Government legislation which favoured her home state of Tasmania. She might have to abstain on laws which would benefit her own constituents.

But she today insisted she would continue the fight for a second group she has promised to look after, the military, and demand the Prime Minister change his mind in the next month.

“Today or in the next 48 hours I will be seeing the Prime Minister over the Defence Force and their pay issues and their Christmas leave and travelling entitlements that have been taken off them,” she told reporters.

“Which is only a small amount of money I’m asking for out of the $442 billion Budget a year.

“So I’m hoping he’s come to his common sense and he’s going to show respect to those men and women and turn that decision around and fix that before Christmas time and give those fellows a nice Christmas gift as well.”

But Mr Ciobo said: “The fact is that Defence Remuneration (Tribunal) has signed off on this. It’s a done deal.

“We understand fundamentally as the Coalition people saying, ‘We would like more pay, we’d like more entitlements’. We understand that.

“A lot of people in the private sector are saying that as well. But the public sector cannot be immune from the belt tightening.”