Lambie defends sex-shop trip

SENATOR Jacqui Lambie has spoken out about her trip to a sex shop with her former political staffers amid a legal dispute with her previous chief of staff and his wife.

The Burnie senator revealed she took staff to visit an adult shop to shop for “Christmas trinkets” last year after nine straight days of work, when asked about the trip live on Sky News.

Senator Lambie’s former chief of staff Rob Messenger said she had taken staff on the trip after leaving her office earlier this year.

Mr Messenger and his wife Fern, who was Senator Lambie’s office manager, are now involved in a legal dispute with the senator. “We did go and visit an adult shop, we did that,” Senator Lambie told Sky News host Samantha Maiden.

“We had been working nine or 10 days straight, I don’t deny that. By the way, it’s a local business — it’s locally owned, what is stopping me from going in to speak to the people in that business?

“As well as that, we were getting Christmas trinkets.”

Senator Lambie declined to comment on the dispute with the Messengers, saying it should be left to the courts. But she defended the trip. “We have pretty good morale in my office, it’s pretty open, there’s no doubts about that,” Senator Lambie said.

“We’re like normal people out there, that’s what we are in my office, very normal people.

“We like to have a bit of a joke with each other.

“Everybody participated in those Christmas trinkets, just so that’s clear.”