Independent senator Jacqui Lambie has said she would find it easier to work with Julie Bishop or Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister rather than Tony Abbott.

Senator Lambie said she found Foreign Affairs Minister Ms Bishop “very approachable” and said Communications Minister Mr Turnbull had been “very polite to me in the corridors”.

The senator had met with Mr Turnbull a few times, she told ABC Radio .

But the outspoken Tasmanian threw caution into the air and suggested leadership might change a thing or two.

“But the thing is, it’s okay to say they would be [easier to work with] until they turn leader and whether or not they change their ways, that’s the issue,” she said.

The senator, who resigned from Clive Palmer’s Palmer United Party (PUP) in November last year, is well-known for giving unreservedly candid and occasionally misinformed opinions during media interviews.

Last year she was criticised for a series of gaffes, including a claim to Indigenous heritage in Tasmania, when she described herself as a descendent of “Marlargena”.

The mishap was an incorrect reference to Mannalargenna, an Indigenous chief from the late 1770s.

She further inflamed public sentiments when she was asked to define Sharia Law, the legal framework based on Islam.

Ms Lambie mumbled an incoherent response on ABC program Insiders and said, “You’re either an allegiance to um Australian law and show your allegiance to our Constitution um but you can’t have 50-50.”