Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie has launched an attack on the federal government on the eve of the budget, accusing it of doing few of the things it had promised to help disadvantaged Australians.
Senator Lambie was responding to comments made by Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh on Q+A.
Mr Leigh had been asked what the government would do to help Australians on JobSeeker as the budget returned to surplus, but he refused to divulge what the spending would be.
The mooted figure and the one mentioned by Q+A audience member Avery Howard was approximately an extra $20 per week as they asked: "Why is the Labor government committed to leaving millions of people in poverty?"
Mr Leigh responded by saying there would be a "big cost of living package tomorrow night, which will be focused on the most disadvantaged".
But when pushed on what the government would do for Australians on JobSeeker, and Q+A host Stan Grant asked whether Labor would issue a rise similar to the $50 per week increase provided by the Morrison government, he was non-committal.
That did not fly with Senator Lambie, who demanded Labor walk the walk it had talked while in opposition.
"All the time Labor was in opposition they were giving you $150 a fortnight as Newstart, and I'd expect it to be as they promised," Senator Lambie said.
"[They] fought the blue team and they belted them every day I was up in that Senate when the Liberals were in.
"I expect you blokes to get $150, and even that will not be as helpful as you'd like in today's world.
"The other thing is — and you need to be clear about this when people are living in poverty — there's no good giving a little bit here and a little bit here and a little bit here.
"You're giving out chicken feed and you're not going to progress nowhere."
Senator Lambie then turned her attention to what she said the government had not done and also railed against stage 3 tax cuts.
"If I don't see $150 given to the Newstart people ... there's going to be a lot of terribly disappointed people out there, not to mention the students who are now getting a 7 per cent increase in your fees this year because of the inflation rate," she said.
"Kids before even leaving their university and want to buy a house, they're getting now six-figure university fees at the end of their four years.
"[You have] done nothing about the funding of the arts degree they do at university, where you absolutely belted that Liberal Party for months and months and months for putting it up.
"I haven't seen you drop that back yet.
"These are the things that you said you would do. What's the difference now that you're in government?
"You've still got those bloody stage 3 tax cuts. With rich people like you and I, because we earn more than enough, we could pay more tax, not take more tax.
"That's how it should work. That's the patriotism that should be back in this country and it's gone missing."
When it was pointed out that Senator Lambie had supported the stage 3 tax cuts, she said that had been the case, but there had been caveats and they had kicked in.
"That was before COVID, and I made it very clear in my speech [that] if things went down the gurgler, they had to go," she said.
"We need to be big people here … and if we've got people that can't even afford breakfast on Newstart, certainly can't afford a new shirt or get a bus ticket to get to their job interview, then we've got to move things around a little bit here.
"It won't hurt the country for those of us who have got money to start giving back more and start evening it up."
$4 billion surplus but people living in parks
Following his lambasting from Senator Lambie, Mr Leigh remained firm on not giving out any details about Tuesday's budget.
But as multiple audience members spoke of their present struggles, the news broke that the budget would have a $4 billion surplus.
University student Eliza Putnis said she was doing 1,000 hours of work placement this year.
She said she and other students could not survive on "under $50 a day" and called for a rise in Austudy payments.
Mr Leigh said he was aware of the issue and again flagged a cost of living package. He then appeared to indicate there would not be an increase to Austudy, and blamed past Coalition governments for current problems.
"We can't fix in two budgets the problems that have emerged under nine years of Coalition misrule," Mr Leigh said.
"But we're expanding places at university — tens of thousands of additional places, targeted at first-in-family students — and looking at focusing the cost of living relief on making sure people like you stay in university and go on to make a great impact on the world."
He gave a similar answer later in the show when charity volunteer Gabriele Seidel-Wynne asked what the government would do for Australia's homeless population.
"I'm feeding people in the park, under a bridge, living in cars, families, people that need assistance now," Ms Seidel-Wynne said.
"They can't go on a list and can't wait for 10 years or five years or one year.
"Their help is extremely limited and things are desperate on the ground where reality is happening.
"It's spiralling out of control and people need help."
That comment caused Grant to ask Mr Leigh to again divulge what help there would be for Australia's most vulnerable.
"You're going to bring down a budget tomorrow night with a significant surplus — billions of dollars in surplus — and people are struggling under trees in parks," Grant said, but Mr Leigh remained stoic.
"I'm not at liberty to reveal the budget bottom line," he said, before Ms Seidel-Wynne delivered criticised the government politician.
"These people are not going to eat tonight, you're going to sleep in a warm bed," she said before Mr Leigh said the budget would help those people.
"And we recognise those needs are the people that you talk about," he said.
"I joined parliament in order to make a difference for the most disadvantaged. And they will be at the heart of the cost of living package we're delivering tomorrow."
