Duncan Storrar, the man whose Q&A question defined the election campaign at its outset in   May, has emerged to challenge the nation's leaders once more in the final hours - declaring the vilification he endured has spurred him to become a full-time public advocate for the poor and the voiceless. 
In an exclusive interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Storrar said the eight weeks since his famous Q&A appearance had been traumatic and forced him from his Geelong home and into seclusion.
But on election eve, he wanted to end that isolation and let Australians know his original act of notoriety - simply asking a politician a question - was his right as a citizen.
"I'm getting there, I'm doing better. I don't think I'll ever recover from it, but I am doing better," he said of his baptism by fire in the public arena, which included both the uplifting - Australians donated more than $60,000 to a crowdfunding account set up by two Q&A viewers - and the humiliating, when News Corp papers ran a series of stories detailing past criminal convictions.
"Somebody like me has a right to speak. It doesn't matter what my past is, I'm a member of the Australian community and I have a right to ask my politicians a question ... by attacking me the way the media attacked me, what it was saying was that the common man can't ask a question and he certainly can't ask a question that punches a big hole in their political argument."
Of the eight-week campaign since that night, Mr Storrar said he had heard nothing from the major parties about addressing poverty and homelessness.
Noting that this month marked the anniversary of Bob Hawke's failed 1987 pledge - "by 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty" - he said: "In that time we've had both Labor and Liberal governments in power and neither one has done anything to solve this problem, but they have both done things to make the problem worse."
The flood of financial support he received from Australians showed people "want to do something about the state of poverty in Australia, and the politicians are ignoring the fact that the Australian people want to do something. It was like, this is something we could do because we don't know what to do and our politicians aren't showing any leadership."
(The crowdsourced donations are in a trust fund for the education of his two children.)
Mr Storrar has joined forces with author and poverty campaigner Linda Tirado on the Rise And Be Heard project. Taking its inspiration from his Q&A experience, it allows people to pose questions to politicians online, which the organisation then takes up the power chain for answers.