Stuart Bridges

NEW: Ukrainian forces struck several Russian defense industrial plants and oil infrastructure objects in Moscow City and Oblast overnight on May 16 to 17 following Russia’s intensified strike series against Ukraine on May 13 and 14. Other Key Takeaways: Ukraine’s May 16 to 17 strike series proved that Russia continues to be unable to effectively defend the Russian capital, a weakness that generated significant frustration in the Russian ultranationalist information space. Russian forces recently advanced in the Hulyaipole direction. Ukrainian forces continued their long-range strike campaign against Russian warships in the Caspian Sea overnight on May 16 to 17. Russian forces launched 278 drones against Ukraine.

Labor’s new capital gains tax of up to 46% to 47%, which is far and away the highest in the world, hammers all businesses, including small companies, harder the more successful they become. By applying the most expensive CGT regime in the world, Labor is taking almost half of the upside of any successful firm, encouraging owners and executives who own shares in the business to look at relocating overseas. The question, however, is how many small businesses will actually pay this tax in practice. We prepared the following simulation to highlight the impact. We took the long-term 20 year returns from Cambridge Associates for smaller venture capital companies, which grow by 12.2% pa. We adopted the ASX equity market volatility of 15% pa, which would understate the true volatility of small firms (and thus lead to a lower proportion of very high growth companies paying 46-47% tax in our analysis). We then ran a simulation to estimate the proportion of businesses paying CGT of more than 40%. We find that within 10 years more than half of all Aussie small businesses will be hammered by CGT over 40%, which rises to 78% of all small businesses by 20 years... By giving Australia the most uncompetitive business valuation tax in the world, this policy will crush innovation, entrepreneurship, spending, productivity, growth and our global competitiveness. We already have among the lowest productivity growth rates in the world: by reducing productivity further, we could raise the cost of living, inflation, and interest rates.

The world's largest offshore wind farm has been approved by the Scottish government despite concerns from conservationists that it could kill tens of thousands of seabirds and destroy coastal views. The wind turbines will cover a huge part of the iconic East Scotland coastline across Fife & Angus. For scale, each turbine will be taller than the Eiffel Tower - at an enormous 1,165 feet. Up to 307 turbines are earmarked for construction. A shameful blot on the landscape that is being developed despite huge local community and conservation objections.