She wanted to ban the burqa and Muslim immigration – but firebrand senator Jacqui Lambie has since performed a quiet backflip on Islam.

These days Aussies are more likely to hear Ms Lambie, who is Indigenous and previously served in the Australian Army, talking about veterans’ rights or economic issues.  

Since 2018, Ms Lambie has blamed an ‘advisor’ for controversial views she expressed about Muslims while she was a Palmer United Party Senator for Tasmania. 

It was a line she echoed in an interview with left-wing podcaster Abbie Chatfield earlier this month, as she continued trying to shake off the radical image that defined nearly half her political career.

‘I think a lot of young people, a lot of progessive people, think you’re very, very aggressively right wing because of the association with Clive Palmer,’ Chatfield told Ms Lambie.

‘Yet your views are quite progressive, are about the everyday Australian, and helping out people with cost of living. What’s going on Jacqui Lambie?’ 

Ms Lambie replied: ‘For young people out there, I did have a right-wing advisor when I first got in.

‘And I had been really sick for 12 years. I was like a wrecking ball, I was worse than Miley Cyrus I s*** you not. It was so bad.

Jacqui Lambie (pictured left) sat down for an interview with podcaster Abbie Chatfield earlier this month

Jacqui Lambie (pictured left) sat down for an interview with podcaster Abbie Chatfield earlier this month

'Somebody was not giving me the right advice,' Ms Lambie told Ms Chatfield on the podcast

‘Somebody was not giving me the right advice,’ Ms Lambie told Ms Chatfield on the podcast

‘And I look back at it… shameful, and I just think, “Oh my God, somebody was not giving me the right advice”.’

Details were scarce, but Ms Lambie claimed to have taken direction from her ‘right-wing advisor’ for several years. 

After a year of pontificating in parliament about Muslims, the senator resigned from the Palmer United Party in 2014 and became an independent, forming her own party, the Jacqui Lambie Network.

She had called for a burqa ban during her time with the PUP, and attacked Sharia law, although she was famously unable to define what it was. 

But as an independent, her anti-Muslim stance continued. As late as 2017 she was urging the Australian government to follow Donald Trump’s lead with a ban on Muslim immigration, and introducing her burqa ban as a private senator’s bill. 

‘It was for really, really nasty stuff. Which is really unfortunate. I had an adviser that was making me say things that were way too right wing,’ she told Nine.

In 2018 came the pivot, and Aussies seem to have accepted at face value her claim about a staffer who led her down the wrong path, with Lambie admitting her anti-Muslim comments were too strong.

Ms Lambie (pictured) called for a burqa ban during her time with the PUP, and attacked Sharia law, although she was famously unable to define what it was

Ms Lambie (pictured) called for a burqa ban during her time with the PUP, and attacked Sharia law, although she was famously unable to define what it was

There are still issues that get Ms Lambie fired up.

In the interview with Ms Chatfield, the target of her rage wasn’t Muslims but her former idol, Donald Trump, particularly over his harsh tariffs.

‘You’ve used us,’ she fumed on the podcast. 

‘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.’ 

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Jacqui Lambie for comment.

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk