The next item on Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie's agenda is the state's ailing health system, with the independent saying the Hodgman government has "lost control of the health crisis".
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In a typically no-nonsense interview on ABC Radio on Monday morning, Senator Lambie addressed her deal with the federal and state governments to have Tasmania's historic housing debt waived, as well as her view on the Coalition's welfare policies.
"Now that we're all settled, we've got the housing done and done a few other things, I want to come straight back and ... from here on in we'll be working on health," she said.
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"If that means that me and a staff member or whatever have to sit in those hospitals on Friday and Saturday nights and do whatever we've got to do to find out exactly what's going on and help fix that health system in Tasmania, [so be it]."
Senator Lambie said she had constituents who had been waiting for hip replacement surgery for more than two years.
"They're now addicted to painkillers so these problems are now leading in to bigger problems," she said.
"I just don't see any solutions coming out of the [state] government.
"If they can't find [a solution], then I'll go around them and I'll go and see if I can find [one] myself."
Senator Lambie also touched on her conditional support for the federal government's proposal to drug-test welfare recipients, saying she'd only back the idea if it was also applied to parliamentarians and if more drug rehabilitation services were established across Australia.
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"Don't inflict on others what you won't inflict on yourself," she said. "It's as simple as that."
"It's no good cutting someone's money down if you can't find them the services or get them into rehab when they need it, because that's just penalising them for nothing."
On the cashless welfare card - which would quarantine 80 per cent of unemployment and welfare payments so that they can't be spent on alcohol, illicit substances or gambling - Senator Lambie said she had been encouraged by the results of the trials at three sites around the country.
"[South Australian trial site] Ceduna was only 900 people at the time that it went on the card," she said.
"But I watched the local supermarket in that town triple its earnings - I think it was in about three months or four months, because what it meant was people were going in and they were buying food.
"The kids were going to school with lunch, they were having breakfast."
Federal Parliament resumes on Tuesday following the winter break.
Rob Inglis
Rob Inglis is a reporter with The Examiner, covering state and federal politics. He is based in Hobart.
Rob Inglis is a reporter with The Examiner, covering state and federal politics. He is based in Hobart.
