Jacqui Lambie stood in the Senate this week and tearfully asked a question that was designed to make everyone deeply uncomfortable: what would happen if the men in charge had to navigate the same broken system as female veterans?
In a bid to reverse a proposed $5000 annual cap on veteran health services from July 2027, the Tasmanian senator and former soldier emotionally revealed to parliament her own deeply personal medical history directly connected to injuries sustained during her army service.
Her raw speech touched on experiences rarely heard in the confines of Parliament: “Six months ago my vagina had begun to prolapse,” Lambie told the Senate. Three months later, she said, it had taken her bladder with it.
Getting treatment was a battle. Lambie said she faced lengthy waits to see a gynaecologist in Tasmania and ultimately travelled to Canberra for the $7000 procedure after her claim through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs failed to get a response.
“I paid $7,000 out of my own pocket to get the surgery I needed,” she explained on a related social media post. “Most female veterans don’t have that option. They’re left waiting on DVA and hoping like hell they can find a specialist willing to take DVA’s [low] rates.”
Her experience, she argued, is not an isolated one. Lambie cited a survey of almost 500 female veterans in which two-thirds reported pelvic collapse with treatment either inadequately funded or not classified by the DVA.
“So either DVA doesn’t know female veterans have vaginas, or they actually don’t care.”
Lambie pulled no punches in questioning the dismal treatment of female veterans.
“I would like to ask the Prime Minister, Minister Marles, and Minister Keogh what they would do if their penis was hanging by a thread?” she asked.
“What would they do with treatment for that injury, directly connected to their military service, was denied by the Department of Veterans Affairs?”
In a raw and passionate request Lambie finished her emotional speech by ‘begging’ the Prime Minister to remove the cap. “I’m asking you once more. I’m begging you, Prime Minister. We are already suffering enough. Drop the bloody cap. “Veterans have had enough. Leave us alone.”
Lambie’s deeply personal plea for female veterans is proof that representation matters – especially when the system – designed by and for men – fails to understand women’s bodies.
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