CGT : Summary of Current Submissions to the Panel I've analysed the current submissions to the panel and cross referenced the legislation to ensure their validity; so far there are only 11 submissions. aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Bus… Notably, most submitters explicitly support (or don't oppose) applying the changes to residential property, rather, their objection is the extension to shares, businesses and other productive assets. The concerns were as follows: 1. The reform is too broad: a "category error" The housing-affordability rationale doesn't transmit to equities and business assets, yet the measures apply to all asset classes, with no direct transmission to new housing supply. Storage Lord frames sweeping in operating businesses as policy convenience rather than policy design: if the concern is residential housing, the instrument should target residential housing. Defender Ventures argues the "distortion" justification is self-defeating: if the aim is to shift households from passive property towards productive equity, taxing both at the same higher rate cannot achieve it: a neutral disincentive is no incentive at all. 2. The indexation/loss asymmetry Indexation applies to gains but not losses, so gains and losses are no longer measured against the same yardstick, and an investor with both a gain and a loss in the same year pays tax on a construct that bears no relationship to their actual economic position. Stern, Otso and Maddock's all flag this; effective tax on real portfolio gains can exceed 50% because losses aren't indexed. 3. The 30% minimum tax punishes the wrong people It assumes anyone realising a gain in a low-income year is tax-arbitraging, but for owner-operators the low-income years are the cost of building the business, and the gain is deferred labour income for work already performed. Storage Lord cites a Treasury cameo where someone on $25,000 of income with a $10,000 gain pays an extra $1,600 - a 16% tax increase. 4. Risk capital, startups and venture investing hit hardest. For founders and early employees the cost base is near zero, so indexation provides almost no relief, and the 30% minimum on a near-zero base after a decade of unpaid work taxes salary that was never paid and risk already borne. The changes undermine diversification, since venture returns come from a few winners offsetting many losses, and would push investors toward stable mature companies instead of growth firms. 5. International competitiveness / capital and talent flight Oktopi contrasts Australia with rivals : Singapore (no CGT on individuals), New Zealand (no comprehensive CGT), the US QSBS exclusion, the UK's EIS/SEIS, and France's regime for young innovative companies - and warns Australia is moving the opposite way. Tier One People warns the changes may accelerate the movement of both capital and professional talent to jurisdictions with more competitive treatment of risk capital and personal income. 6. Double taxation and the franking-credit interplay Stern and Allan Gray both note reinvested profits are taxed twice (company shareholder), and the Budget papers ignored the franking interaction. Allan Gray warns this creates a huge incentive for companies to pay out franked dividends and retain as little as possible for reinvestment, so growth, productivity and employment all suffer. 7. Superannuation distortion Because super is taxed far more lightly, Deegan warns the changes create a powerful incentive to shift speculative, high-risk activity into SMSFs/super- running directly counter to the prudent-retirement-savings objective. 8. Misleading "nine in ten small businesses protected" claim Storage Lord and Maddock's argue the $2m turnover and $6m net-asset thresholds were set in 2007, have not been meaningfully updated, and now describe microbusiness rather than real small business. Asset-heavy businesses (storage, manufacturing, hospitality, agriculture) breach them simply by needing premises or equipment. 9. Compliance burden is large and unacknowledged Pre-2027 assets need market valuations to split gains; for unlisted interests a formal valuation typically costs $10,000 , effectively mandating valuations at owners' expense for assets they may not sell for years. Dividend reinvestment plan portfolios become an administrative burden multiples of today's. 10. Process, mandate and lack of evidence Multiple submitters note CGT reform was not in Labor's 2025 platform and was explicitly ruled out, yet is being fast-tracked within months of the election, and call for it to be referred back for consultation or taken to an election. Maddock's notes no independent economic review supports the changes; the Henry Review recommended only a modest cut in the discount from 50% to 40%, not this. Defender Ventures highlights the Treasurer's own October 2024 advice that abolishing the discount "would not make a meaningful difference" to housing supply. 11. Sector-specific harms Junior resources: Deegan warns retail investors will simply exit the small-cap resources space, redirecting capital to term deposits, blue chips or offshore, starving the discovery pipeline. Commercial property: Westbridge's modelling shows the after-tax risk premium on value-add/development assets falls by roughly 43%, pushing capital toward passive, long-leased assets and away from new supply. Picking winners: Both Maddock's and Storage Lord object to confining any tech "carve-out" to one well-lobbied sector while leaving other operating businesses exposed. Conclusion Common recommendations across the submissions: 1. Confine the CGT changes to residential property 2. Index losses as well as gains 3. Drop or narrowly target the 30% minimum tax 4. Update the small-business thresholds 5. Slow the process down for proper consultation. Welcome for comments and feel free to make submissions.

Paul Dirac’s daughter on his working schedule

I'm not buying this Labor is all about helping young people narrative. Rental growth is 6.8% nationally (SQM) and vacancy rates remain collapsed. We have the highest home building rate of major Anglosphere nations, yet we still have an acute rental crisis. Young people are battling just to secure a roof over their heads and even the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (a federal government organisation) knows this is crushing household formation rates. While I do believe that there are elements of Labor who do genuinely want to fix things and were likely the driving force behind the changes targeting property investment on existing homes, the reality is what we are seeing is at best giving with one hand and taking with the other. Ultimately, the reality is the government cant even be honest with renters why they must continue to suffer, instead allowing the government to be insulated by the propagation of myths and outright lies. History will not be kind.