A Queensland mum who exposed a tradesman for allegedly making an ‘Asian eyes’ gesture at her female Uber driver – resulting in a swift pile-on against his employer – has now found herself on the receiving end of a blistering legal threat.
TikTok creator Jess Roberson, 38, shared footage of the male driver making the gesture in an apparent road-rage incident while he was driving a clearly branded Provac ute.
When the footage was shared online, it triggered outrage which prompted the company to publicly condemn the employee’s behaviour, however, the dispute then escalated.
After investigating the company, Jess shared the information that Provac director Matthew Lambert stood as Pauline Hanson‘s One Nation candidate for the Queensland seat of Forde at the 2025 federal election.
Provac claimed the videos and information shared on her posts had led to harassment and abuse of staff and attempts to tarnish the company’s reputation.
She told Daily Mail Australia that Provac – rather than contacting her via the email addresses listed on her TikTok account – took a far more personal approach.
‘They haven’t made any effort to reach out to me personally, but they did call my mother-in-law, and they tracked down my husband, who runs a small business,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘(Dominic Lambert, the son of Provac director Matthew Lambert) demanded my personal phone number from my mother-in-law, and she obviously refused to give it to him.
Jess Roberson made the claims against the tradie on TikTok
A Provac driver was accused of making a racist gesture to her Uber driver
‘He said, ‘Tell her we’ve got a lawyer and we’re going to be taking legal action against her for defamation’.’
Days later, Jess was served with a 10-page cease-and-desist letter from lawyers acting for Provac.
In the extraordinary correspondence seen by the Daily Mail, the company accuses Jess of going well beyond merely criticising the employee’s conduct and instead portraying Provac itself as a racist business.
The letter argues there was ‘no factual basis’ to suggest the company endorsed or tolerated the employee’s behaviour, noting Provac had condemned the incident, apologised to the Uber driver and begun an internal disciplinary process.
Lawyers allege Jess’ TikTok videos, captions and comments falsely implied racism was embedded within Provac’s management and workplace culture.
They further claim her calls for followers to ‘do your thing’, share the videos and continue investigating the company fuelled a coordinated online campaign, resulting in non-genuine Google reviews, abusive emails and phone calls, boycotts, and the targeting of employees and their families.
According to the legal letter, the fallout has caused significant commercial harm to the Queensland business, damaged its reputation and exposed it to financial losses.
Provac claims it intends to pursue legal action for injurious falsehood, alleging Jess’ publications were false, malicious and directly responsible for the company’s losses.
Provac Director Matthew Lambert ran for a One Nation seat in Queensland last year
Jess’ mother-in-law received a call from Provac director Matthew Lambert’s son Dominic demanding her personal phone number
Dominic Lambert works at Provac with his father Matthew and called Jess’ mother-in-law
One Nation Forde Candidate Matt Lambert attended a meeting representatives from the Eagleby Community last year
Among the sweeping demands, the lawyers ordered Jess to immediately remove all three TikTok videos, stop making further publications about Provac, preserve all evidence relating to the posts, moderate comments encouraging harassment, publish a corrective statement for 30 days, and urge followers who left non-genuine Google reviews to delete them.
‘Apparently they wanted me to retract all of my statements and issue an apology… so I sought my own legal team,’ Jess said.
‘My lawyer’s going to respond to them.’
In a follow-up video, Roberson thanked followers for their support.
She also criticised Provac’s initial response.
‘They’ve said they’re taking action, but they haven’t specified what. They need to be saying what action is going to be taken.’
Provac did not respond to Daily Mail’s request for comment.
