Jacqui Lambie gives emotionally-charged speech on ‘shameful’ welfare cuts

Independent senator Jacqui Lambie was brought to tears during a speech to the Senate last night over the government’s proposed welfare cuts, drawing on her experience as a single mother struggling to make ends meet.

“There were times when I had to say no to my son, who was great at football and great at athletics and great at basketball… and telling him on two occasions, ‘I’m sorry mate, but you can’t go, because I can’t afford for you to go’,” she said.

“There were times when I would sit in a corner and cry because I felt so ashamed, for two days I didn’t know how I was going to put bread and milk on the table.”

Ms Lambie begged the Senate not to pass the government’s two-year freeze on the family tax benefit to help pay for childcare reform.

However with the support of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team, the bill passed without amendments just after midnight on Thursday, and it will now go to the lower house with reforms to follow as soon as today.

“There was a time when my fridge broke and for three weeks we lived out of an esky, and I put the esky under the house so the ice would last longer. That was what my life was like,” Ms Lambie said.

She was forced to give up her career as a military police officer after a debilitating injury in 1997, sending her onto the disability pension and sparking a battle with depression.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the freeze on the family tax benefit would mean single-income households on about $60,000 with two primary school-aged children will lose up to $440 over the next two years.

"Families with school-aged children stand to lose scarce dollars which help them make ends meet," he said at Parliament House.

The government had combined a $1.6 billion boost to childcare and $5.6 billion in welfare cuts in a single omnibus savings bill, but on Wednesday chose to split it and drop a number of cuts after acknowledging certain defeat.