Senator-elect Jacqui Lambie denies she threatened a Tasmanian state election candidate who has walked out on the Palmer United Party (PUP).
Ms Lambie, who surprised by winning PUP a Tasmanian senate seat at the federal election, says a series of phone messages she left local councillor Marti Zucco were not menacing.
The messages to Mr Zucco, who ran for PUP in federal seat of Franklin, were published in Tasmanian newspaper The Mercury on Wednesday.
"If you want to run again that is fine," one says.
"But I won't be backing you until you ring me again and I will be telling Clive (Palmer) to cut you off.
"So you make your own f***ing choice on it mate."
Ms Lambie has confirmed she left the messages.
But she says Mr Zucco, who was planning to run for PUP again in next year's state election, needs to "toughen up".
"That's how business and politics works," she told AAP.
"If you don't like the heat then get out of the game.
" ... The man's twice as big as what I am - get real."
Mr Zucco has said he will now run as an independent at the state poll, expected in March.
The stink appears to have begun when a $1 million federal election policy to retrain Tasmanian forestry workers as miners was questioned by Ms Lambie, who says it lacked detail.
Ms Lambie says she left other messages offering to sort out the pair's differences over a coffee.
She said Mr Zucco, a former pizza restaurateur, expected to be handed a leadership role and had a problem with women in positions of authority.
"I'm not one of his waitresses," Ms Lambie said.
"We'll just put it that way."
Mr Zucco says Ms Lambie tried to freeze him out of the state team following her election to the senate.
"I believe she used her position to intimidate me after she had a power base," he told The Mercury.
PUP founder Clive Palmer is backing Ms Lambie.
"Marti Zucco never put a nomination in, he wasn't prepared to put a nomination in," Mr Palmer told reporters in Canberra.
Mr Zucco has also said the party does not have the 100 members it needs to register for the state election, a claim rejected by Ms Lambie.
She said she would not tolerate ill-discipline in the Tasmanian party.
"If they're stepping out of line and they're not doing the correct thing and they're running round big-noting themselves, then I'm going pull you off your pedestal and bring you back down to earth," she said.
"That's how I operate."
