‘I’m not Jacqui’: Tammy Tyrrell steps out from Lambie’s shadow, flagging her own approach to Senate votes, negotiations

One of Australia’s newest senators wants to get something clear from the start. “I’m not Jacqui,” declares Tammy Tyrrell, new Jacqui Lambie Network senator for Tasmania.

Tasmanian Senator Tammy Tyrrell: “I’m not Jacqui.” Picture: Peter Mathew

One of Australia’s newest senators wants to get something clear from the start. “I’m not Jacqui,” declares Tammy Tyrrell, the newly elected Jacqui Lambie Network senator for Tasmania.

Taking her place in the Senate beside her former boss and mentor, Senator Tyrrell is keen for Australians to know that she is her own person and will be her own politician.

“They can call me the second Lambie all they like but once people meet me they realise that while there may be a few similarities, I am different,” she told The Weekend Australian.

“We both want to achieve great stuff for Tasmania and make sure it’s a fairer place to be. We’re very proud and loud. But there are ­differences. She’s a bit of pit bull; I’m more of a labrador.”

The 51-year-old former farm ­labourer and admin and employment services worker from Ulverstone, in Tasmania’s Northwest, said she and Senator Lambie, whom she served for seven years as office manager, may not always vote as one.

Senator Tammy Tyrrell was previously the office manager for Senator Jacqui Lambie. Picture: Supplied

“I’m going to have to wait and see what pops up,” Senator Tyrrell said. “Ideally, we should vote ­together, but we also represent Tasmania from different per­spectives because I’m not Jacqui. I’m Tammy and always will be Tammy.

“There’s always that opportunity that I can vote differently but majoritively we will back each other and educate ourselves so that we come to a common ground.”

Being “in the middle” of the political spectrum, Senator Tyrrell said she was willing to consider “maximum good, minimum harm” ideas put forward by all ­political operatives.

“I just want to achieve positive things – I’m with the Jacqui Lambie Network, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to do the best for everybody that I can possibly do,” she said.

In terms of negotiation with Labor or others in the Senate, her “door is not shut to anybody”.

The “Tassie born and bred” mother of two adult boys is keen to champion issues concerning the “battlers” in her state, noting that some of her family continue to work as farm labourers.

Her paddock-to-parliament journey appears to have created a grounded individual. “I was on the dole and (then) progressed out of the paddocks – carrots, spuds, production line,” she said.

“I went into an employment services program where they taught me … to use a typewriter and how to speak on the phone.”

A series of admin roles followed with training organisations and local government, and then a career in employment services, before working for Senator Lambie.

“Employment services was a huge eye-opener to (me on) drug and alcohol issues, homelessness, mental health issues,” she explained. “You saw people on their best day and their worst day.

“Battlers is a great way to put it, because it means that you keep pushing through and keep on aiming higher and higher.

“It’s taught me that anything in this life that you want you need to fight for. You need to put in. You need to contribute. And nothing is impossible if you want it and work hard.”

Success meant different things to different people, she said. “A lot of my family still work in paddocks and for labour hire companies and when they move to a new job, that’s a success,” she said.

“They’re usually moving to a better pay rate, better working conditions, a better style of life.”

Her partner Tim works in aged care, and she said she would agitate for higher wages and other measures to recruit and retain staff in this “train wreck” sector.

She also said she wanted to ­improve government support for grandparents acting as primary carers for their grandchildren.