‘It’s not enough’: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese quizzed over support for young Australians

The PM has come under pressure from aggrieved young Australians, who say they “can’t get by” unless they receive additional support.

Anthony Albanese has defended his support for young Australians, arguing that the relief measures rolled out to date by his government are helping take the pressure off the continued cost of living crunch.

Speaking in an interview on ABC’s youth radio station Triple J, the Prime Minister said the changes his government has made stage 3 tax cuts were “good economic policy”, which would help young Australians.

“This is a practical response to the fact that so many people who are low and middle income earners have borne the brunt of having to deal with the inflation that has impacted on the economy and impacted on the cost of living,” Mr Albanese told Hack host Dave Marchese.

“This package is targeted squarely at Middle Australia while looking after people who are going to miss out and not getting anything at all, which is those under $45,000,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his economic support for young Australians. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

While taxpayers earning less than $45,000 were not entitled to receive any tax cut under the initial Morrison-era iteration of the stage 3 tax cuts, under the Albanese government’s overhaul these low income earners will receive some relief.

For those with incomes below $45,000, they will now receive a tax cut of up to $804. The original stage 3 cuts did not included that tax bracket.

But with many young Australians most acutely affected by the cost of living crunch, the tax break slated to take effect from July 1 comes amid surging prices for rents, transport and after the indexation of HECs debts.

The ABC host again pressed the prime minister on its support for young Australians.

“The listeners are saying: ‘It’s not enough’,” Mr Marchese said.

In response, the PM rattled off the government’s existing measures to help ease cost of living pressures.

“We’ve got cheaper medicines … we’ve had the tripling of the bulk billing incentive on Medicare, we’ve had meaningful energy bill relief that’s made a significant difference, we’ve had fee-free TAFE places … we’ve increased the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent,” he said.

“We’ve had increases to working age and student payments including JobSeeker, Youth Allowance, ABSTUDY and AUSTUDY.”

Young Australians have borne the brunt of the rising cost of living, with the 25-29 cohort cutting back on spending most significantly. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

But Mr Marchese said despite the relief, young people were still finding it difficult to make ends meet.

“We’ve covered all of those [support changes] pretty substantially on Hack over the past year but I guess a lot of our listeners are saying still: ‘We’re really struggling, we can’t get by’,” Mr Marchese added.

A year after the government halved the rebates for psychology sessions from 20 to 10, the prime minister was then pressed if he would backflip on this decision, as he had on the tax cuts.

But Mr Albanese was adamant the change was necessary so that more people overall could access a psychologist.

“What you will see is that what was happening is that yes, people were getting more sessions but a whole lot of people were getting zero sessions – weren’t able to get any assistance at all,” he said.

“What you can’t do is overnight train professionals to provide these services – the truth is that a whole lot of people, particularly outside of the inner suburbs of our cities, were missing out on any support, they weren’t able to get in.”