If it wasn't for Bill Shorten, Tammy Newson reckons her son would still be living almost blind but without disability payments.
Or worse, the former miner might not be here.
The opposition leader personally intervened to get 32-year-old Nick - who suffers from multiple sclerosis - onto the disability support pension, after his mother battled Centrelink for seven-and-a-half months.
Ms Newson says her son was suicidal and with five per cent sight in one eye and 25 per cent in the other, couldn't hold down work.
"Every job that he put in for, as soon as he did the test, or told them that he had MS, they just wouldn't look at him," she told AAP in Burnie on Friday.
Fed up with her local Liberal MP Brett Whiteley, who she says wouldn't meet her, Ms Newson went to a Shorten forum a few months ago.
There she told the Labor leader of her son's plight.
"His office went above and beyond," Ms Newson said.
That meant involving Social Services Minister Alan Tudge in her case and writing to the prime minister.
Four weeks ago, the young father's pension was approved.
On Friday, as Mr Shorten campaigned in the Tasmanian seat of Braddon Ms Hewson got a chance to thank him as he met voters at a local cafe.
"I was very emotional," she confessed after chatting with the opposition leader.
Ms Newson wants to share her story so others in the same situation also keep fighting.
Mr Shorten was in Tasmania to pledge a $44 million tourism infrastructure fund, naming the first four projects to get cash.
"Tasmania can no longer hide its beauty from the world," he told reporters.
The fund will provide:
- $1.275 million for the Burnie Waterfront Masterplan.
- $ 4 million for the final stage of the Three Capes Walk.
- $10 million to transform ex-HMAS Tobruk into a dive wreck off Tasmania's north-east coast.
- $15 million for an upgrade to amenities on Cradle Mountain.
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