The Project host Waleed Aly worried about Australia

Waleed Aly has revealed why he thinks Australia is no longer the ‘happy country’ as parents are forced to go hungry so their children can eat.

The project’s host said the rise of Australia’s ‘working poor’, who cannot afford to heat their homes or pay for their groceries, was ‘frightening’.

He said good health insurance and social security systems had previously set Australia apart from countries like the United States.

“Suddenly it comes to us,” he told his co-hosts on Thursday night.

And it’s such a tragedy because that gets to the heart of what it’s all about. What politics is about, what our budget is about.

“I think we are losing something very essential. It’s not just a story of bad luck, it is that, but it’s the story of the soul of the land or something.

“There’s something much deeper going on here.”

Aly’s co-host Sarah Harris said the panel had heard numerous stories from parents who couldn’t afford to heat their homes and care for their children.

She said families were forced to make “impossible decisions” about what essentials to spend their money on each week.

“We hear from parents that they pretend to feel full so their kids can eat, and don’t feel guilty about eating the only food left in the house,” she said.

“What’s happening here?”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton accused the Albanian government of turning Australia’s middle class into ‘working poor’.

“You have a situation that Labor has created over the course of the last 12 months where I think we have a middle class of Australians, a working poor that Labor has created,” Dutton told media ahead of his budget speech .

‘(They are) people who work hard, go to work and can’t keep their heads above water.’

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has accused the Albanian government of turning Australia’s middle class into the ‘working poor’ (pictured, Mr Albanese and partner Jodie Haydon)

Mr Dutton claimed Labour’s budget ‘harms working Australians’ but ‘worse, it threatens to create a generation of working poor Australians’.

On Tuesday night, federal treasurer Jim Chalmers announced a series of measures to benefit welfare recipients, with JobSeeker and Youth Allowance both increasing $40 every two weeks starting in September.

“We understand there will be people who say $40 every two weeks isn’t enough. Some will say it’s too much,” Dr Chalmers said.

“We think we’ve struck the right balance between what we can afford and taking into account the economic pressures in the economy.”

The ability to qualify for a higher rate from JobSeeker will also be reduced from 60 to 55, due to an increase in the number of older Australians on the payment.

Mr Dutton (pictured during question time on Thursday) said the government needed to spend taxpayers’ money ‘wisely’ and that benefits were for the most vulnerable Australians

Labor has encouraged the coalition to back the measures, which aim to ease some of the financial strain on families amid the escalating cost-of-living crisis.

Mr Dutton said the government needed to spend taxpayers’ money ‘wisely’ and that benefits were reserved for the most vulnerable Australians.

“The Australian taxpayer is very happy to support those people who are in need, but you have to help those who earn the most,” he told 2GB radio.

“It’s not for people in a situation where they can get a job but refuse to take a job.”

He warned that Australians would face a tax increase from July, with the government not extending compensation for low and middle income earners.