Annie E @[email protected]

I asked the Attorney General's Department how they justify delaying publishing an FOI until 1 minute before Senate Estimates

Labor clearly can’t defend why its CGT changes extend beyond property if the intent is to remove tax incentives for property. But I’m seeing a new wave of defence being that a) they only apply to the ‘wealthy’ and b) ‘small businesses’ are exempt – so let me tell you why these are categorically wrong. • The ‘wealth’ data is fundamentally flawed: It’s based on single year transaction data, rather than lifetime earnings. About 90% of Aussie taxpayers earn under 135k per year, so when an investor sells a long-held asset, that single transaction for a single year pushes them into the ‘top 10%’. This doesn’t mean they’re in the top 10% of wealthiest Aussies – it simply means that for that specific year, they earned over 135k, which could be off the back of decades of earning much less per year. • The small business concessions aren’t indexed: The $2m threshold for annual turnover and $6m threshold for asset value haven’t increased for almost 20 years (a problem that extends to many of our taxes). This means modest family businesses are being dragged into a tax regime originally designed for much larger operations – specifically, where it was designed to exempt 95% of businesses entities in 2007, it now only exempts about 60% in 2026 (and rapidly shrinking). • The path to building wealth is being cut off: Financial independence is rarely achieved by earning a wage and spending it. For people to become comfortable or modestly wealthy, they generally need to save and invest the wages they earn. Enforcing a minimum 30% floor rate on all forms of capital gains, even for people whose income puts them below the 30% marginal tax bracket, makes it harder for wage earners to build wealth. The bottom line is that this budget suppresses aspiration and socio-economic mobility – and I don’t think that’s what Aussies voted for at the last election.

I asked the Attorney General's Department how they justify delaying publishing an FOI until 1 minute before Senate Estimates

Say it with me: Disabled people deserve to live even if they can’t work.

Many comments below argue that if you own your house, you have the right to do what they like with it & any change would be a denial of free rights. In reality multiple laws, bylaws & development rules control use of private property & no one is free to do whatever they want

Guy who has called two royal commissions and is required to lead the response: