Lambie defends PUP mining tax deal

Palmer United Party senator Jacqui Lambie has defended the deal her party did over the mining tax and associated family payments.

In exchange for PUP's votes to abolish the tax, the government agreed to extend the low-income super contribution until June 2017, the income-support bonus and the schoolkids bonus for two years instead of getting rid of them straight away.

Labor says the new sunset clauses mean families will still lose out.

But Senator Lambie says that's just mischief-making.

"The decision on whether these payments will be axed, thanks to PUP, is now in the hands of the Australian people," she said in a statement on Sunday.

"PUP will take to the next election a policy which will guarantee those payments continue to those needy souls."

Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Sunday said the coalition had promised before the 2013 election to get rid of those payments and now it had delivered.