Jacqui Lambie brands Pauline Hanson a ‘bloody coward’ for attacks on Liberal MP Andrew Hastie

Pauline Hanson has been branded a “bloody maggot”, “coward” and an “angry little woman” as the feud between her and former soldier turned Liberal MP Andrew Hastie escalates and prompts the RSL to intervene.

Independent Senator Jacquie Lambie, who is also an Army veteran, on Thursday let rip at the One Nation leader and said her party’s satirical Please Explain cartoon which depicts Mr Hastie as a “traitor” was “absolutely disgusting”.

“Anybody that hides behind a cartoon and goes after a veteran and calls him a traitor, a paranoid traitor, and a washed-up, gutless maggot. I have to say you’re a bloody maggot yourself and you’re a coward,” she told News24.

“She has no idea of patriotism, that woman. You don’t attack veterans and you don’t stand like a coward behind your goddamn cartoons … that woman is disgusting. She’s just disgusting. Yeah. She has never achieved one bloody thing up here.

“Because of what she does, she’s dividing this country. She is dividing it. She’s not uniting us. She’s an angry little woman with so much baggage on her that everybody else and her supporters think that is acceptable behaviour.”

Senator Lambie, who regularly speaks out on issues affecting ex-servicemen and women, also accused Senator Hanson of delaying the royal commission into veteran suicide and urged those in the military community not to support One Nation.

Over recent days, Mr Hastie’s feud with Senator Hanson and fellow One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has escalated, with the Liberal frontbencher labelling them “lying cowards” after he claimed they called him a “traitor” in a string of social media posts.

During several media appearances the former SAS captain has called on One Nation to either “own it and explain why I’m a traitor and why other veterans are traitors or delete it”.

“I think that shows Pauline to be weak or glass-jawed. I asked a simple request, either own your words, own the fact that you’ve called me a traitor or take down the cartoon, she’s done neither,” Mr Hastie told reporters on Thursday.

“I said that Pauline Hanson and One Nation had called me a traitor to my own country, and today Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson both denied it. Today I’m calling them lying cowards”.

Earlier in the week Senator Hanson denied calling Mr Hastie a traitor but told The Nightly he was a “wanker” for complaining about the One Nation leader declaring that she wanted her party to win his seat of Canning in Western Australia.

As the spat between Senator Hanson and Andrew Hastie intensified on Thursday, RSL Australia issued a statement saying the One Nation leader’s recent comments towards the Liberal MP went “beyond political disagreement”.

“This may have begun as a political dispute between Senator Hanson and Mr Hastie, however, when a person’s military service is used as the punchline, when the word ‘traitor’ is thrown at someone who has worn the uniform and deployed on operations, that stops being politics and starts being an attack on every veteran’s service.”

“Veterans don’t stop being accountable to their oath once they leave the ADF. Branding a former soldier a ‘traitor’ sends a corrosive message to the wider veteran community: that your service can be recast as betrayal the moment it’s politically convenient.”

“RSL Australia asks all sides of politics to keep that distinction. Calling a veteran a traitor is a slur, and it deserves to be treated as one regardless of who it’s aimed at or how it’s dressed up.”

One Nation’s leader in Western Australia Rod Caddies was reluctant to weigh into the dispute when asked about the escalating feud.

“Well, I wouldn’t call him a traitor myself. So you know that’s the most I’m going to comment on that,” he said initially.

“I’m not going to condone calling anyone a traitor that served our country. I’d prefer every party, including our own party, had the temperature down,” he told reporters.