Mother of four Adelite Smith works two jobs but still struggles to make ends meet.
"Childcare is so expensive," she said.
"I used to always buy the same things, but now the same amount of money is not stretching as it used to."
A first-time voter in Western Australia's most marginal seat of Cowan, Ms Smith is someone both major political parties will be hoping to win over at the polls on May 21.
According to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), around 440,000 new Australian citizens will cast a vote for the first time in this federal election.
Although Ms Smith received her Australian citizenship in 2014, she said the lack of significance that voting held back in her home country of Zimbabwe influenced her decision not to vote in 2017.
"If you come from a place where voting really is not meaningful, it's really hard to change that point of view and to start believing that your vote here counts," she said.
Working with vulnerable clients as a family domestic violence social worker at Ishar Multicultural Women's Centre in Mirrabooka encouraged her to do more research ahead of the election.
"With the pandemic, it's been really difficult, and a lot of people are facing more stuff. Domestic violence is going up, mental health [issues are] going up, alcohol and other drug [use] is going up," Ms Smith said.
"So the main thing is that now I get to see what a vote actually means … and what having the right party actually means for our communities."
But the 27-year-old claims she is still a "baby in politics" and is busy building knowledge of Australia's electoral system.
"I learned the other day that Scott Morrison and Mark McGowan were not from the same party … because I just thought if we have Liberal leaders, it's all Liberal in every state," she said.
Cost of living, house prices among key issues
While Ms Smith, 27, is still on the fence about where her vote will go, cost of living pressures and housing affordability are front of mind for her at the ballot box.
"The City of Stirling used to be one of the more affordable places for housing … but we're really struggling to find housing for clients because houses have just gone up," she said.
"Public housing is absolutely non-existent at the moment and even [the waitlist for] priority housing is like two to three years now, so how can it really be priority housing?"
Ms Smith said she was also looking for a leader who embraced multiculturalism, with Cowan containing some of the most culturally diverse suburbs in Perth.
"I want more options for multicultural people to be not just an Australian citizen, but to be a meaningful Australian who can engage in and participate in the community."
Seat changes hands five times in 38 years
The average income in the seat of Cowan is about 10 per cent lower than the rest of the state, and for nearly two-thirds of its residents, at least one of their parents was born overseas.
It is a swinging seat, having changed hands five times since its creation in 1984.
The electorate, covering 95 square kilometres, contains Perth's most diverse inner-northern suburbs such as Greenwood, Marangaroo and Alexander Heights at the northern boundary and Osborne Park, Dianella and Nollamara to the south. It was named after Edith Cowan, the first woman elected to an Australian Parliament.
Due to a boundary redistribution last year, the electorate now takes in a large swathe of the abolished seat of Stirling, which means two sitting MPs will be battling against each other.
Labor's Anne Aly has held Cowan since 2016 and hopes to retain it again, despite a wafer-thin margin of 0.9 per cent.
Her seat is being contested by Liberal candidate Vince Connelly, who was elected as the MP for Stirling at the 2019 election.
Tussle for seat will be 'fascinating contest': analyst
Notre Dame politics professor Martin Drum suspects Cowan's redistribution has played a part in making it a hard seat to predict.
"I think Cowan is really significant because it's a Labor-held seat that the Liberals are campaigning in, and in the event that they lose seats elsewhere, this could make a big difference," he said.
"It's a very mixed community with lots of different multicultural groups, so it's fairly difficult to say how that will play out.
"There is a Muslim community in the southern part of the seat and then there's other areas, which are really quite different, in the northern part of the seat."
However, Mr Drum said the electorate's narrow margin means it could swing either way.
"It's s a more mild marginal seat than it was previously, and it does give Vince Connelly an opportunity to be an incumbent and to appeal to voters that he previously represented," he said.
Parties pressed to fulfil their promises
While cost of living pressures also resonated with Nollamara resident Roland Tsang, it was support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) that he said would be central to winning his vote this election.
Born with cerebral palsy, the 51-year-old expressed his frustration over the disability sector's current state, after having to wait six months to get new wheels for his wheelchair.
"Why does the funding submission need to sit on someone's desk for that long before they get approved?" Mr Tsang said.
In his budget speech last month, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg pledged $157.8 billion over four years for the NDIS and said it would "always be fully funded" under the Coalition.
Meanwhile, Labor has pledged to implement a six-point plan to "return the scheme to its original vision" if it wins the election.
But Mr Tsang is concerned over whether the parties will live up to their promises once they come into power.
"They do the campaigning but when they get in, do they do what they say? They never do what they say," he said.
