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Over $50k raised via crowdfunding for Q&A ‘battler’

A campaign to raise $6000 for Q&A‘s unforgettable Aussie battler Duncan Storrar has surpassed its target by tens of thousands in just 24 hours.

The ‘buy Duncan Storrar a toaster’ campaign raised more than $50,000 in one day after the 45-year-old father-of-two appeared on Monday night’s episode of the ABC panel program.

His no-nonsense question on changes to the personal income tax threshold for middle-income earners brought a memorable dose of reality to the political debate.

• Q&A: Battler skewers panel on tax
• Budget super changes: what they mean for you
• Five-minute Budget guide

“I’ve got a disability and a low education. That means I’ve spent my whole life working for minimum wage. You’re going to lift the tax-free threshold for rich people,” Mr Storrar told the panel.

“If you lift my tax-free threshold, that changes my life. That means that I get to say to my little girls, ‘Daddy’s not broke this weekend, we can go to the pictures’.

“Rich people don’t even notice their tax-free threshold lift. Why don’t I get it? Why do they get it?”

qanda

Australian Industry Group CEO Innes Willox, Australian Council of Social Service CEO Cassandra Goldie, Labor’s Andrew Leigh, host Tony Jones, Liberal Minister Kelly O’Dwyer and Greens’ Adam Bandt on Monday night’s panel. Photo: Twitter

The proposed budget changes would see the income threshold for the 32.5 per cent tax bracket lifted from $80,000 to $87,000.

The question prompted mixed reactions from the panel, including Minister for Small Business and Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer, who later illustrated a point on company tax cuts for small business with the example of a “$6000 toaster”.

The GoFundMe campaign was started on Tuesday, with more than 1820 donations raising more than $50,000 by Wednesday evening. That’s about 2000 two-slice toasters from Target.

“We don’t really know Duncan, we saw him on the TV just like you all and did this all to lift his spirits with a nominal donation,” the campaign page said.

“Duncan has stated intentions to donate a large portion to an additional family who – as he put it ‘broke my heart’ – with their touching attempts to help him after the Q&A appearance, despite arguably being in a situation more dire than his.”

Mr Storrar, a part-time truck driver with a mental health condition (post-traumatic stress disorder, according to News Corp), planned to use the rest of the money to fund the education of his two daughters, Jakalah-Rose and Indica.

It “hurt” that he struggled to provide them with an education, he told Fairfax Media.

“Especially when the reason for that is [that] I didn’t get a good education and made the wrong choices at 13,” he said.

“When you know it’s your own fault that you’re not making a lot of money, it hurts.”

But an article in The Australian on Thursday painted a less-flattering portrait of the sometimes-truckie.

Mr Storrar’s 20-year-old son Aztec Major told the paper his father was a drug addict who got him addicted to drugs aged 17.

“The public should know what kind of person he is,” he said.

“It’s good that people want to give money but they should give it to a good cause.”

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