Keep energy payment for poor: advocates

Welfare groups have written to Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten calling on them not to scrap the so-called energy supplement, paid to some of Australia's poorest.

The $4.40 a week payment - originally designed as carbon tax compensation - is part of an omnibus bill of savings Labor and the government agree on.

"Whatever the original purpose of the energy supplement, neither Labor nor any other party with a commitment to a decent social safety net could support slashing payments to people living below the poverty line," ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie said on Monday.