The Prime Minister is under renewed pressure from within his own ranks to increase unemployment benefits with a Nationals MP arguing it is needed to address poverty in rural and regional areas.
First-term MP Pat Conaghan, who represents the New South Wales mid-north coast seat of Cowper, has broken ranks from Government policy and told the ABC he wants the Coalition to raise Newstart by $75 a week.
Mr Conaghan joins a growing number of colleagues including former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and former prime minister John Howard pushing for an increase.
He described the current rate as "inadequate" and said the Government should still be in a position to adjust Newstart, despite budget pressures.
"I would urge my colleagues from both sides of the floor to have a real discussion. Not just throw it up in the air and punch the ball around," he said.
"This is something that I think should be at the top of my priority list because you've got kids that are going to school without food.
"Forty-one per cent of kids under 15 [years of age] in both Kempsey and Nambucca are under the poverty line."
Newstart recipients get a minimum of $280 a week and, in real terms, the rate has not been raised in two decades.
It is estimated a $75 per week increase would cost the budget $3.3 billion a year, and Mr Conaghan acknowledged it was a sensitive time to campaign on the issue because of the money being spent on bushfire recovery, drought, floods and managing coronavirus.
"It's probably the worst time to raise this conversation but we have to have it," he said.
When asked if he would prioritise people and poverty over a budget surplus, he replied "absolutely, any day of the week".
"Despite the challenges we've faced over the last 12 months, I think we're still in a position that if we start that conversation now we'll recover from the fires, we'll get over the coronavirus, and the budget will still be in a position where we can genuinely talk about raising Newstart."
Successive governments have shown little appetite for increasing the rate despite pressure from leading economists, social services and business groups.
Drought, fires pushing more people onto welfare
With droughts and bushfires affecting numerous regions, the Red Cross said it is likely many more people are being pushed onto welfare payments.
"You've got a lot of people who might have lost their livelihood," said the agency's head of emergency services Andrew Coghlan.
"They may have lost tools of the trade in the case of builders and carpenters. For others they may have had a home office and it may have been destroyed.
"These types of things can lead to people having to apply for different types of assistance."
That rings true for the volunteers behind charities such as Loaves and Fishes, a food store in Coffs Harbour.
It sells heavily discounted groceries to people in need and also gives food away for free.
The store's founder, Russell Jones, said in a city of 75,000 people the store had almost 5,000 members signed up to receive discounted and free goods.
"When you factor in their families we're helping out about 15,000-odd people in our area," he said.
"Currently we've got about 13 farmers that come to us to get the leftover bread and produce that's not used by people here.
"It's no longer fit for human consumption, and one farmer told us that what we're providing for him has saved him about $600 a week on food for his cows."
But Mr Jones' charity, like others, is struggling to stay afloat.
It pays $8,500 in rent per month, on top of thousands of dollars in utility bills, food and vehicle costs, and insurance fees.
"We've got to the stage where we've [got] about two months left [of rent] we can cover, so it's quite tight," he said.
"We've invested our lives in it, caring for the people of our city, so it's a really heart-wrenching thing to think we might not be here in the long term to help all these people."
