Daniel Nunan

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.

Anthony Albanese’s Labor Government has only one way forward. The 2026 Federal Budget broke key election promises, proving the Prime Minister is an untrustworthy, pathological liar, WITHOUT MANDATE. Albanese must now call an election to gain mandate.

If the Government abolishes the “discount” on capital gains and replaces it with indexation and don’t carve out startup founders and employees they will set back the startup ecosystem in Australia by a decade or more. Founders will leave Australia in big numbers. Founder’s “cost base” isn’t capital but years and years of sacrifice and toil. At a time when we are about to see a tsunami of job shedding by existing businesses, Australia’s best hope is a wave of startup innovation. A ~50% tax on gains by founders and team members will have disastrous consequences. We need the Government to provide immediate clarity.

Firstly, you assume I use Ai to write my opinions. I don’t. I certainly use Ai for a lot of things, including research. Anyone who is not using Ai, or learning the benefits of Ai technology, is missing out. Ai will have greater influence on our future than anything previously created throughout history. I read up a lot about climate stuff. I don’t profess to be an expert. But neither are those who abuse me for my opinion. For what is worth, here’s my explanation. The basic philosophy of climate change is the Earth has a heat-trapping blanket of air around it. Climate change activists claim that burning fuel like petrol, coal and gas, are making that blanket thicker. A thicker blanket means the planet gets warmer. They argue that man-made CO2 creates a warmer planet, which causes more severe climate events. The climate argument is that the longer we keep thickening the blanket, the harder it becomes to fix. That’s the theory.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ They exaggerate the speed at which this will be a factor. The vast majority of catastrophic predictions over the past 50 years have simply not occurred. Not even close. My own children, smart kids, all now in their 20s, educated in Australian schools, were at one time completely convinced, (and panicking), that the planet would end within a decade unless man stop producing CO2. They would get very upset with me, because I would say that this is not going to happen, certainly not in such a ridiculously short time frame they were fearing. Younger people have been educated to think this way. People are making a fortune, governments are being elected, purely on the fear-mongering premise that humans are changing the climate and the planet is in jeopardy. Fact - CO2 makes up less than 0.04% of the atmosphere. Human produced CO2 is only a fraction of that small number. Blaming CO2 for global warming is like blaming a drop of ink for changing the colour of your swimming pool. The Sun drives our climate far more powerfully than any gas. Exposure to the Sun warms oceans. Warmer oceans release CO2 naturally. Therefore, CO2 may well be a consequence of warming, not the cause. History backs this up. Earth had warming and cooling cycles long before humans existed. More CO2 actually makes for a healthier planet. Plants grow faster. Forests and crops thrive. This is happening now. It’s been proven. A slightly warmer, CO2 rich planet, makes for a healthier planet. Humans think in terms of human survival, rather than accepting the planet has always changed, adapted, and renewed across its 4.5 billion year history.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Human existence is in jeopardy in the longer term. Not the health of the planet. The planet will survive much longer than the human race. It will not be global warming that kills the human race. The human race will self destruct long before any climate event removes them. Human philosophy for changing the climate, is actually leading to economic harm and quality of life deterioration. The costs are greater than the proposed cures. They want to dedicate trillions of dollars and cripple our energy systems chasing Net Zero - a target with no scientific guarantee it will change the climate one degree. The idea that human industrial policy can influence global temperature, is arguably as arrogant as the belief that humans are powerful enough to destroy the planet in the first place. I’m all for reducing pollution, cleaning up our environment, protecting our water supplies. That’s common sense. I’m against the economic and social damage we are inflicting on ourselves through ridiculous energy policies, which will have zero effect on the climate in the long run. That’s my opinion. It seems to upset climate change believers. I don’t care. Not for one minute do I think my opinion matters, or that it will change anything. But I do think the world thinking is slowly turning back the other way. I’m hoping so, anyway.