From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. It's been almost a decade since Jackie Lamby dramatically quit the Palme United Party. Since then, she's become a political force in Canberra and in her home state Tasmania as the leader of the Jackie Lamby Network. At the last federal election, Lamby's longtime staffer Tammy Tyrel, won a Senate spot, and at the last Tasmanian election just a few months ago,
the party won three seats. But now the Jackie Lamby Network is imploding after Tyrell resigned and two of the three Tasmanian MPs were sacked. Today, senior reporter for the Saturday Paper, Rick Morton on the allegations Jackie spied on her colleagues and why she hasn't been able to hold the party together. It's Monday, September to So, Rick, I think that most of us have an idea in our
mind of who Jackie Lamby is. She's the straight talking Tasmanian senator who turned her personal brand into an entire political party, the Jackie Lamby Networks. So tell me about her journey.
Yeah, I mean, her story is one of the more fascinating arcs. She you know, was elected on the coattails of Clive Palmer and was pretty abrasive.
You know what, that baby's made more progress in a thousand days than a Liberal party have on their own bill. That is where we're at, a three year old shameful.
And so when we talk about brand Jackie Lamby and really is just who she is. You know, she is kind of the every woman and I think that's why a lot of people have warmed up to her over a long period of time now since first elected into the Senate.
Having that experience of being on a single mum's pension and trying to bring up raised to boys during a really traumatic time of my life was really difficult. So to go without I know what that feels like, and it's really difficult. And somehow I had a door open. I was one of the lucky ones and I managed to be able to get through that, but many don't.
And she's now got this eponymous political party, the Jacquelaemy Network, which she's fashioned in her image, and their main motto really is just giving a leg up to the little guy. They're trying to fight to keep the Barson's honest and really their overall stick is just accountability, transparency, loyalty, making sure that politicians in particular do what they say they're
going to do and are open about it. It was originally founded because she wanted to get re elected to the Senate after she left Clive Palmer, and it hadn't really changed much until the twenty twenty two federal election when finally, after raining a few people in different tickets, this long time staff and Jacque Lambi Lay Timmy Tyrrell, a former office manager for Lambie, wins a Senate seat as part of the Jackie Lambi network. So suddenly there
were two. And then of course we have this Tasmaniu of State election where astoundingly the Jackie Lamy network fields a bunch of candidates and they get three MPs elect. They get Andrew Jenner, who's a former mayor from a relatively small borough in the United Kingdom.
We've get Miriam.
Beswick, who's a small business owner type religious person from Devonport, and Rebecca Pentland who is a pharmaceutical consultant. And having three MP's in the State Parliament put them in a position of great power and influence from outsiders to king make.
Its well, not career politicians.
We're just normal people that have just want to try and make a difference and want to just try and bring a bit of common sense back into Parliament. So they signed this deal with the Liberal Government minority government
which Jackie Lamby essentially took control of. SLASH help them negotiate and if you read it, it includes a stability protocol that requ why I have both the Liberal Government and the Jackie Lamby Network MPs to warn each other of what they're going to do, usually within twenty four hours when they intend to do it, so essentially to make life easier.
For both of them.
And then, of course we're not even six months into the new government and what should have been this era defining win for Jackie Lamby has turned into this near implosion filled with poison and Retrick about disloyalty and people who've betrayed the party.
Right, Okay, so where does this begin?
Rick?
What were the first signs that something was going wrong within the Jackie Lamby network between her and her candidates.
Really, it's five days after the state election the federal Senator Timmy Tyrrell announces that she's quitting the party. And she does it in a frankly quite a strange way.
I want you to hear this from me. I've decided to leave the Jackie Lamby Network and become a senator for toast Mana in my own right as an independent. Jackie is into I hated that she's not happy with the way that I've been representing the Jackie Lamby network.
So i've she does its video, she releases this statement.
It's very like, oh my god, I love Jackie Lamby and I love the network so much, and I never want to heard it. But this is like a family breakdown. We still love each other, but we can't be together kind of thing.
It's just, you know, like when you're in a marriage where somebody's already left, you don't want to be in there just for you know, for looks. You actually want to break out, do the right thing by the family in general, which Tasmania is my family.
But Lambi also, and this is critical to note, didn't really get stuck into her. She just said, Okay, off you go.
Tammy Tyrrel was sacked as a senator under your name your state party effectively lasted five months.
Nobody sack Tammy Tyrrel Teme Tyrell left.
When I asked Lamby Jackie Lamby about this, she was a little bit more aggressive. I guess where she's like. All I ever asked when we got her up, which was you know, got Tammy Tyrrel up in the Senate, was that she do what she said she would do, and that is put Tasmania first. And then she went she said, you know, I don't know why she doesn't just say I left because I wanted to leave and stop blaming people. There is something that went on there, no one actually really knows.
So Timmy Tyrrell leaves literally five days.
After the state election, and then five months after the state election, Jackie Lamby kicks out two or the three Tasmanian MPs that she only just got elected, Miriam Beswick and Rebecca Pentland. And now there is one state MP in the Tasmanian Party down from.
Three, right, so she has one seemingly loyal MP left. But what happened to these other two tasmanimps, to Miriam Beswick and Rebecca Pitland.
Yeah, this is a fascinating part of the story because
it really depends on who you are. But everyone, no matter whose side thereon agrees on the fundamental truth, which is that there was a massive breakdown and the relationship between Jackie Lamby, Miriam Bethwick and Rebecca Pentland in particular had been souring for months and one of the main reasons for that was Beswick and Pentland truly believed that some of the key staff, the parliamentary staff, the highly paid staff that Lambi had scrounged around and found for them, were actually spies.
Really, why did they think that?
Yeah?
I mean that I was like, oh, I can't just write that they're spies, and then everyone kept saying no, they thought they were spies, including people who are on their side, So you know, that's what they thought. Why is another matter. You know, if you ask someone like Andrew Jenna, he's the one remaining MP, he's saying, well, that's just how they felt.
You know.
They were new to this, they didn't have any experience.
They wanted to spread their wings a little bit, but these staffers were trying to advise them about how to be successful and deal with the parliament, and Beswick in Bentland just didn't believe that they had their interests at heart, even though they were in this party.
They treated them terribly, according.
To some sources within the party, and the staffers felt they had no choice but to just walk out. And I've tried to triangulate this as much as possible, but I ended up speaking to someone else about this.
His name is Glynn Williams. He's a lawyer. He's been a Lamby.
Consiglieri for over a decade. But he said there were not quoting him here, strange aberrations in the establishment of the office in Hobart. He said, I don't think that that was handled in a collaborative manner, and that must have caused confusion to everyone involved, including the staff. Now, he said he tried to fix things, that he had some frank conversations with Jackie Lamby. She told him apparently she rejected his approach in very colorful terms. Those who
didn't speak for seven weeks after that. And then he says he was fired by a letter from Jackie Lamby just saying you are no longer need it, so she sacks him and then just kind of assumes the mantle of president of her own party.
Right.
Another person gone.
Yeah, I mean, as much as he might want to have faith in people, you do have to start asking questions when quite a few people go missing.
He's gone.
They've got a new board, and Pentland and Beswick tried to get Jackie Lamby to sign an agreement saying that you will not intervene in the affairs of the State.
Party and you will do this and you will do that.
And Jackie Lambi's people were like, no, we're not finding that.
That's this our party.
And of course Lamby's office view the whole thing is in subordination. And it really ed left this wound from which it was really difficult to recover, and it fested for another three months until the weekend before last when Patlan and Beswick were just spectacularly expelled.
Coming up after the break, the party splits over the Spirit of Tasmania. So Rick recently, after months of tension, including allegations of spying, Jackie Lambye sacks two of her Tasmanian MP's saying that they're not being accountable, they're not being transparent. So tell me what tipped things over? Why did this happen?
Now is my favorite part because I've got to talk about boats. Two Spirits of Tasmania replacements. Now, anyone who's ever been to Tasmania on the back of a boat, will have been on the Spirit of Tasmania, these enormous ships that.
Cross about straight.
The government there for many, many, many years now has promised to replace the two spirits of Tasmania at a cost of like a billion dollars. So this is like and for a state by Tasmania, it's one of the biggest infrastructure projects you can possibly have. It's hugely critical for the economy, tourism but also you know, productivity in terms of the northern half of the state and access to mainland Australia.
It has not gone well. The ships are five years late, they're five hundred million dollars over budget.
The two new spirits were originally meant to arrive three years ago at a cost of seven hundred million dollars. That price tag has blown out to almost a.
Billion, and now that they are actually close to being arriving in Tasmania, it emerges that the port in Davenport does not have a berth that can help.
The ship's knew birth, that Devenport won't be ready until twenty twenty six. With the cost growing from the original estimate of ninety million dollars to three hundred and seventy five million.
Despite the fact that this Tasmani owned company, tit Line, has been telling everyone that everything's going to be fine and the Infrastructure Minister, Michael Ferguson that everything's on time and on track. That was not true, and Michael Ferguson says he didn't find out until they formed government again, despite the fact that he should have been kept in
the loop. But very few people in Tasmania are willing to accept that he was just not told about the fact that the biggest infrastructure project in living memory doesn't have a berth. Now, Jackie Lamby, after all of this, and after all of this emerges only in the last few weeks comes out and says Michael Ferguson, the minister needs to be accountable, he should resign.
Part of URBO uses holding people accountable and we just we did not believe that they were holding Mike Ferguson accountable.
And Beswick and Pentland two of her MPs who have signed an agreement saying they will support the government in most circumstances unless there's corruption or malfeasans. Pentland and Beswick were just like well, you know what, shouldn't we just wait for the Public Affairs Public Accounts Committee to do its job and then we can decide what to do. Yeah, it really did put us in an awkward position with our supplying confidence deal.
We're here to bring stability.
We weren't here to hold the government hostage.
You know, they all agree to stuff up, but they were more interested in maintaining the stability of the government, whereas Lamby was more interested despite the deal that she negotiated, being just putting the boot in. And that's where we have this big breakdown.
All right.
So it seems like at the heart of this disagreement, Rick, is this deal that Jackie Lambe and the MPs made with the government. Jackie Lambe seems to not think that's important anymore. These MPs seem to think it's very important to stick to it. So is this really more about them not doing what Jackie Lamby wants and says at all times?
I think this really gets to the numb the issue.
And to kind of get my head around this, I called the Tasmanian based election analyst Kevin Bonham to kind of walk me through it. Interestingly enough, he's not just an election expert. He's also a recognized expert on landsnails in Tasmania. He'd just been out collecting specimen and looking for them, which I think is just perfect because, as he said, everyone in Tasmania has more than one job,
you know. Essentially, he said, the agreement is almost universally considered to be woeful, but he was saying that really the problem is that the original agreement says what it is, and then Lamby and her later expectations they do not agree. He's saying that she's been all over the place and the position from the party was inconsistent I'm quoting in and it left the MPs in a really difficult position.
If you want to have an eponymous party where you're you know, where what one person says goes, you could do that, he says, but you need to sell it as such, and they didn't. They sell themselves as sort of loose to central network of people who Lamby thinks so good. And of course if you look at the party pamphulet online, it says we let our members disagree with each other, that's okay, we don't want to rule
people's thoughts. And then when they get elected Lamby wants them to do certain things, but that's not the basis that they ran under.
Okay, so Rick, I think the big question here, though, is if you have lost the majority of your MPs, do you still have a party or is this the end of the Jackie Lamby network?
Well, I mean she's had the network since twenty fifteen and was alone for most of that time. So yeah, I guess you do to Andrew Jenna, and he remains very loyal. I mean the problem with trying to model any political movement on a single person, and so there is only one of that single person. By nature, there is only one Jackie Lamby, and you're not going to have a party of ten of them. It's impossible. And
so you're going to have agreements. And if you're not mature enough to actually sort out a framework or a party constitution that actually stipulates when and how this stuff should all work, then you're not ready. Few people often are, And apart from your dynastic successes like the Katta family, even Nick Xenophon, who was incredibly successful for a long time, eventually overreached a little bit. You know it, Just what do you want out of it?
I guess it is the question now.
Jackie Lamby's she started the party because she sort of needed to to get herself reelected and it worked. The fact that she's still there as a senator is an incredible achievement in her own right. But does she have what it takes to keep a party together? The signs are not good. They're not good.
Rick, Thank you so much for your time and for your reporting.
Thanks Ruby.
Also in the news today, the Philippines and China have accused each other of intentionally ramming Coastguard vessels in the South China See. The most recent collision over the weekend and was the fifth maritime incident between the two countries in the past month. China claims almost all of the South China Sea, despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling in twenty sixteen it has no legal basis to do so.
Parts of the area are believed to be rich in oil and natural gas deposits, and Scotland may use almost two hundred million dollars of Victorian government money to host the Commonwealth Games in twenty twenty six Following speculation in the British media, Commonwealth Games Scotland said it would not need financial support from the government in order to host the Games, partly because of the compensation the Victorian government
page for withdrawing from hosting. National's leader David little Proud said the news was an embarrassment that the Victorian government has imposed on Australia. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See you tomorrow.