An overhaul of the contentious stage three tax cuts has been hailed as a "good thing" by Canberra residents, who believe the changes could bring relief to struggling lower income earners amid the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.
The new policy will reduce tax cuts for higher earners, with those on $200,000 set to see their tax break reduced from $9000 to $4500.
But government figures show the average Australian earning $73,000 a year would receive a $1500 cut, pocketing around $800 extra at tax time under the changes.
Locals who spoke to The Canberra Times on Thursday welcomed the change.
Gordon resident Jordan Renneberg, who works in communications, said the changes were a "good thing" at a time when lower and middle income earners like her family were struggling.
"We've got three young children and we are struggling every single day with finances, and we both work full time, so there's something wrong there," she said.
"Whereas higher income people seem to not be getting affected all that much either. If anything, they're getting more in their pocket, so anything to sort of reduce that would be great and make it a bit more fair."
Mum Bryanne Smith described the new policy as a "nice step" to help the average worker on a lower wage but she believed the government could go further, including providing more assistance for child care.
Carpenter Rawiri Gault-Mckay, 19, hoped the proposed policy will help reduce the struggles faced by lower income earners in the ACT.
"I don't feel that it's that negative, people in a lower income sort of need that extra little bit more whereas on the higher income losing a tiny bit of your tax cut's not going to affect you as bad," he said.
"It's not going to make you very happy if you're expecting $9000 but $4000 is still a pretty good tax cut."
The opposition has slammed the Labor government for backtracking on a promise, with deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley accusing Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of deceiving Australians.
"This is not just a broken promise ... this is a lie. A lie to win an election," she told the ABC on Thursday.
"Every single seat every Labor MP won, was won off a lie and the implications for many of those members, and many of those seats will become clear."
But for those in the Labor stronghold electorate of Canberra and the seat of Bean, a broken political promise came as no surprise.
"I care but I'm not surprised because that's what politicians do," Ms Renneberg said.
Economist Nicholas Fransen believes the move would be politically damaging but he backed the changes.
"Promises do hold weight in the political arena, but I think that I support the decision on the basis that things have changed since the Albanese government took office," he said.
"There's a very strong inflationary environment compared to two years ago, and that's going to need a change as people need to have the basics to get by."
He said the new measures were "fairly sound".
"[It's] a bit challenging to weigh up the trade offs that governments have to make about funding the tax cuts and absorbing some of the political pressure around the cost of living," he said.
"But I think it's welcomed to support that change in terms of the challenges that a lot of people are facing ... but also ensuring that we are looking at the pressures that are a result of inflationary environment where people are being knocked into higher tax brackets."
Jennifer Furze, a public servant living in Duffy, said she didn't care that the government broke a promise.
"I think that it's probably a good thing to change things when things are different. Don't stick with something that might not work," she said.
The changes will come into effect on July 1 if they pass Parliament.
