Mum’s sad plea proves Australia is broken

A young mother has shared a heartbreaking plea for the government to do more to curb the cost-of-living crisis, saying tax cuts aren’t enough for young families to get by.

Young mother Emma Robertson and her partner both work at least 40 hours a week to support themselves and their 15-month-old son Atlan.

Despite living with Ms Robertson’s parents and working more than 40 hours each per week, they say the tax cuts won’t be enough to help and the family is growing frustrated.

Ms Robertson told Channel 9’s A Current Affair the tax cuts do “pretty much nothing at all”.

Mum’s sad plea proves Australia is broken

“The tax cuts come in but everything else goes up so it’s not justifiable,” Ms Robertson said.

The government has claimed the tax cuts legislated earlier this year are set to provide relief to low and middle-income earners while decreasing the benefits for taxpayers who earn more $150,000.

The 33-year-old mother is concerned because despite living with family and receiving the tax cut, her son’s daycare keeps going up.

“We got an email saying our daily rate was increasing by $17 a day, which is quite a lot realistically,” she said.

“When you think about everything else that’s gone up, like car insurance, food prices, fuel, rent, rates, all of that type of stuff … this is not where I saw my life, unfortunately, but it is where we are.”

The young mother works 40 hours a week, while her partner works up to 50, but she said the pair struggle to live comfortably.

Ms Robertson said without her parents, her family would “essentially be homeless”.

“It’s a struggle. We do everything we can to cut where we can, just to survive, to put food on the table,” she said.

“At the moment we just can’t save and get on top of everything. It’s just too hard.”

When asked whether she’d ever own her own property, Ms Robertson said it wasn’t something she saw for herself in the current circumstances.

She’s begging the government to “step up” and help families like her, who need to see the cost of living ease to keep moving forward.

Ms Robertson said she needs help from the government.

“Every single day I wake up and I go what is going to happen this week? What is going to go up today?” she said.

“It’s horrible. I never pictured myself being in this situation, ever, but here I am, just scraping by.”

The Albanese government says the changes mean all 13.6 million taxpayers will receive a tax cut, and 11.5 million taxpayers will receive a bigger tax cut, compared with the Morrison government’s proposed changes in 2019.

The government also claims 5.8 million women will receive a larger tax cut compared with the Coalition’s previous plan.

Under the changes, Australians earning between $18,201 and $45,000 will now pay 16 per cent tax, a 3 per cent fall from the original stage 3 plan.

The 32.5 per cent tax bracket will fall to 30 per cent for workers earning more than $45,000 but will cut off at $135,000 under changes to the tax bracket.

Those earning between $135,000 and $190,000 will now pay 37 per cent tax.

The top tax bracket of 45 per cent will now start at $190,000 instead of $180,000.

An Aussie earning $50,000 would save $929 a year, meaning they will be $804 better off under the new stage 3 tax cuts.

A person earning $90,000 would save $1929 a year, a significant increase from the originally promised $1125.

A worker earning $110,000 would save $2429 a year compared with $1625 under the old plans.

A person earning $140,000 would save $3729 a year, slightly up from the $3275 they would have got back under the Coalition’s initial plans.