Australian Senator Jacqui Lambie has defended her sex shop visit with other political staffers.
The Tasmanian senator revealed she took staff on a shopping trip to an adult store to shop for "Christmas trinkets' last year, Sky News has reported, after questioning her live on television.
Former chief of staff Rob Messenger said she had taken staff on the trip earlier this year after leaving her office.
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 the network.
"We had been working nine or ten days straight, I don't deny that," she said.
"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, and said it should be left to the courts.
However she defended the trip, and said her office liked to have a "bit of a joke with each other".
"We have pretty good morale in my office, it's pretty open, there's no doubts about that. We're like normal people out there, that's what we are in my office, very normal people."
"Everybody participated in those Christmas trinkets, just so that's clear."
Asked what she purchased, she said, "I won't say all of the stuff we got but we did get Christmas trinkets for the Christmas Day celebration".
"I wasn't at a strip club, I wasn't shoving money down a male's pants. I'm a very open minded person and I have nothing to hide."
News Corp Australia reported in June that the Messengers had made an official complaint to the Commonwealth under Public Interest Disclosure laws leaving the office.
Senator Lambie then issued a legal "show cause" notice to the pair over claims Mr Messenger used a private email address for work purposes and allegations they were trying to monitor or spy on their former boss.
Newshub.
