Ms Archer, the mayor of George Town, participated in ABC Radio's Bass candidates debate at Agfest on Thursday morning, along with her five opponents.

And of all the candidates - including Labor incumbent Ross Hart, Greens candidate Tom Hall, United Australia Party candidate Allan Roark, independent Todd Lambert and Nationals candidate Carl Cooper - Ms Archer was the only one not to express in principle support for lifting the Newstart rate.

Newstart recipients receive $273 per week but the nation's peak social services body, the Australian Council of Social Service, believes this rate is too low to live on and should be increased by $70 per week.

Upon being asked if she'd heard any complaints regarding Newstart from electors while knocking on doors during the campaign, Ms Archer said she hadn't had "a single person" telling her that the welfare payment needed to be lifted.

"There's not a one-size-fits-all solution to the issue," she said of concerns around Australia's social safety net.

Mr Hart said he believed the Newstart rate was "shamefully low".

"It needs to be increased," he said.

However, Mr Hart noted that Labor had not explicitly proposed to raise the rate but, rather, to review it.

"There's a very important reason as to why we'd review it," he said.

"We don't want to increase Newstart without ensuring that we don't create a poverty trap in itself.

"We're not proposing a review to cut it, we're proposing a review so we can deliver an increase in Newstart."

Ms Archer responded by saying she was of the opinion that a review would neither "do anything" nor address the "complexity of the issues".

Mr Hall, an anaesthetist at the Launceston General Hospital, said he received more welfare payments in 2018 through his superannuation tax breaks than "someone who can't get a job gets on Newstart".

"I don't think I really needed it as much as they do," he said.

Mr Cooper, a pharmacist, said he thought people on Newstart "would struggle".

"I think there's certainly an opportunity here to improve people's health by giving them better access to a better contribution from government in terms of supporting them," he said.