Victoria's Labor conference was the closest Anthony Albanese could ever come to a "safe space". The Prime Minister made it clear to the cheering ALP faithful in Melbourne who he thinks uses the trusts he is raiding as part of his government's $77bln tax grab - and who he doesn't. "These Australians, millions of hardworking people, will never be able to access a trust," he said on Saturday. "Never sat around a kitchen table and thought, have we thought of setting up a trust? I mean, seriously." Jim Chalmers the week before was more subtle, saying some people used trusts in "legitimate ways", and then there were the "people who have the most money to avoid their obligations in tax". But if the Treasurer wants to help Mr Albanese find hardworking Australians sitting around kitchen tables worrying what the trusts tax means for them, there's a grocer, a sparky, and a young realtor in Mr Chalmers's own electorate of Rankin who can help them understand. Like hundreds of thousands of small business owners across the country, fruit and deli shop owner Steven Nicolaou structures his business through a family trust. The 62-year-old says it allows him "to put a little bit of money away for working for yourself". Now, he's concerned he'll be left "working for nothing" after the budget delivered yet another "kick in the guts" for small business. Electrician Grant Stanford structures his business through a discretionary trust. The 44-year-old said the new taxes on trusts would "trigger changes" to how he supported his family, and worried the reforms could have a detrimental impact on his company. "I have a discretionary trust as part of my overall business structure," Mr Stanford said. "This doesn't make me in the top one per cent but it's going to impact my business and potentially trigger changes to how I support myself and my family." For John Bell, 27, and his wife Jessica, 30, their property plans have been up-ended after the government unveiled new taxes on trusts. Like millions of young Australians, the Logan couple are all too familiar with the struggles of home ownership. It's why they took a different path. "The whole idea was we wanted to buy," says Mr Bell, a property manager for Ray White Beenleigh. — Marcus de Blonk Smith on today's The Australian website.
Close quarters and God's help
The luckless Rabbitoes were no match for the Cowboys losing 18-30 last night. However, in the AFL the Bulldogs/Melbourne match was a real nailbiter, the Bulldogs won 93-90. Not so GWS, it won 166 to 88 against Brisbane. [click to read more]
Greatest wave in professional surfing history? Tom Carroll’s cutback heard around the world
to win the Pipe Masters the day after his sister, Josephine, died in a car crash in Sydney. Tommy Gun, this beautiful, beautiful man, rode the reef like fate, the universe and Pipe itself could get stuffed. Next best? Daylight.
And then perhaps Yago Dora’s helicopter aerial at the New Zealand Pro. All it really lacked on Sunday was a trophy on the line.
Brazil’s world No.1 needed a near-impossible 9.5 points with under a minute to go against Californian Cole Houshmand.
He paddled, popped to his feet, stalled, flew off the lip, spun like a navy helicopter, or circus acrobat, or Olympic skateboarder, plucked a perfect 10-point score from the clouds peeled off half-a-dozen scything turns in a moment you wouldn't have believed if you hadn't seen it from the cobblestones at Raglan’s Many Bay … or on Kayo.
Feels so good. I'm just thanking God for that opportunity,
Dora said. Before then, it seemed like everything was lost. I was praying for an opportunity. Really. I knew I could get the score if the right wave came along. I popped up and saw a little pocket forming … I needed a ramp to get up to a 9.5. I saw a little pocket forming and I was like, 'OK, this is it. I'm all-in.' I stuck the landing perfectly. It’s actually a pretty crazy feeling.
The World Surf League event champions will be decided today.
The men’s semi-finals will pit Dora against fellow Brazilian Italo Ferriera and Australia’s Morgan Cibilic against Californian Griffin Colapinto.
The women’s decider is between Hawaiian supermum Carissa Moore and California’s Sawyer Lindblad. — Will Swanton in today's Oz
[click the intro to return other stories]The recession that we have to have is here
The strange thing about recessions is that most people do not realise they are in one until long after it has already started. At first it feels subtle. A friend loses their job. A business quietly cuts staff. Job ads disappear. People stop spending as freely and mortgage stress starts creeping higher. Then eventually the official data catches up and politicians stand in front of cameras pretending nobody could have seen it coming, Daily Telegraph reports on today's website. [click to continue reading]
ASX Trader writes in the Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper and that is why one number released last week matters far more than most people realise.
Australia’s unemployment rate has now jumped from 4.3% to 4.5%.
On the surface, that may not sound catastrophic.
But unemployment is one of the most delayed economic indicators there is.
By the time unemployment visibly rises, the slowdown has usually already begun underneath the surface.
Businesses have already slowed hiring, expansion plans have already weakened and households are already feeling pressure behind closed doors.
And there is another reason this latest move matters.
Technical analysis of Australia’s unemployment trend is now flashing a signal that has only appeared four times before in modern history.
The previous signals occurred around the: ◘ 1991 recession ◘ 2000 dot-com collapse ◘ 2007 global financial crisis and ◘ the 2020 COVID downturn.
Each period was followed by major economic weakness. While no indicator is perfect, the historical pattern is difficult to ignore.
Importantly, recessions are almost never officially recognised in real time.
Governments typically only confirm a recession after two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth have already occurred. By then, many Australians have already been living through it for months.
What makes the environment particularly concerning is unemployment is now beginning to rise while inflation remains stubbornly elevated.
Economists have a name for that combination: stagflation.
Back to the 1970s
It is the same economic backdrop that caused significant disruption globally during the 1970s, characterised by weak growth, rising unemployment and persistent inflation occurring simultaneously.
Australia’s inflation pressures have frequently been blamed on global instability, geopolitical conflict and supply chain disruptions.
Those factors certainly matter.
But many of the foundations for today’s inflation problem were established well before recent international tensions escalated as I wrote about months ago: Interest rate rises: Why we could be in for 40 years of hell.
For decades, wages and property prices broadly moved together.
But following the introduction of capital gains tax discounts in 1999, combined with falling interest rates, increase in immigration, negative gearing incentives and expanding access to credit, property prices began dramatically outpacing income growth.
Wealth and keeping pace
Australians who already owned assets experienced enormous wealth gains. Those relying solely on wages increasingly struggled to keep pace.
That divide has become one of the defining economic stories of modern Australia.
Importantly, the property market has never been driven purely by supply shortages alone. Housing values are heavily influenced by borrowing capacity and lending conditions.
As interest rates rise and banks tighten lending standards, borrowing power falls.
That weakens demand even if housing supply remains constrained.
Signs of this shift are already emerging.
Flaws in the arguement
For years, many argued housing shortages alone would keep property prices rising forever. Immigration remained strong, vacancy rates collapsed and supply struggled to keep up.
But there was one major flaw in that argument.
Property prices are not driven purely by supply and demand. They are heavily driven by credit availability and government policy.
Property is priced at the margin.
That means prices are often set by the small group of buyers who can still access enough credit to pay higher prices. When banks loosen lending and borrowing capacity rises, property prices usually rise with it.
The reverse is now happening. Higher interest rates, tighter lending standards and policy changes are crushing borrowing capacity across the country.
Auction clearance rates have already fallen sharply compared to this time last year, with some markets dropping from high 70% into the 40-50% range. That signals buyers are becoming more cautious while borrowing conditions tighten further.
And now another major pressure point is emerging.
The Federal Government’s proposed negative gearing changes are already impacting investor lending before the laws have even taken effect.
Under the changes announced in the federal budget, investors purchasing established homes after May 12, 2026 will gradually lose access to negative gearing benefits from July 2027 onwards.
Only newly built properties that add housing supply will retain the full concessions moving forward. Existing investors have largely been grandfathered into the old system.
Banks are already responding
Banks are already responding. Macquarie has confirmed it will no longer fully include negative gearing tax benefits in serviceability calculations for many investment loans.
Westpac has also flagged similar changes, while other major lenders continue reviewing policy updates.
Early estimates suggest investor borrowing capacity could fall between 10% and 20%, with some brokers warning certain buyers may lose far more.
That matters enormously because property markets rely on credit expansion.
When investors suddenly lose borrowing power, demand weakens quickly even if housing supply remains tight. Investors who once could comfortably purchase a property may now find themselves sidelined entirely.
The broader concern is that multiple pressures are now feeding into each other at the same time. Higher inflation keeps rates elevated. Elevated rates reduce borrowing capacity. Lower borrowing capacity weakens housing demand while affordability pressures continue rising for ordinary Australians.
It’s remarkable watching the 18-year property cycle continue unfolding almost exactly as discussed last year. The same themes flagged early, rising inflation, tighter credit conditions, weaker affordability and shifting government policy, are now playing out in real time: Interest rate hikes: ASX Trader — rate shock is only just beginning.
For years, many Australians believed property prices could only move in one direction because that was all they had experienced.
Cycles matter
But cycles have always mattered. Cheap money helped fuel one of the strongest property booms in Australian history. Now that era may be changing.
None of this guarantees a sudden property collapse tomorrow.
Property cycles move slowly. But it does suggest the easy money phase that drove much of the previous boom is likely behind us.
And perhaps most importantly, it shows how quickly the narrative changes.
Last year the story was endless growth and unstoppable demand.
Today the conversation is shifting toward affordability stress, tighter credit, weakening auction results and persistent inflation.
The war may dominate the headlines.
But Australia’s inflation story started long before that.
NEWS:
🐗
The big
culling cut
retreat
The Albanese government has been accused of walking away
from the nation’s fight against feral pests, as an analysis reveals significant federal budget cuts across multiple pest and disease programs, reports The Australian today's website.
[click to read more]
There is rising concern the government is retreating from national funding and co-ordination to stop the spread of weeds and feral pests ∼ pigs, rabbits, deer, fire ants and wild dogs ∼ that costs agriculture $5.3bln a year.
Seeing the federal government departing this space would be a real blow to the effective management of feral species,
Invasive Species Council chief executive Jack Gough told The Australian.
I am very concerned if the federal government thinks this isn't their responsibility because this is absolutely a national priority for Australians who know the value of our rivers, who know the value of our farmland, of our forests. And who want to see them protected from invasive species.
It is absolutely a federal responsibility to be ensuring that the management of one of the greatest threats to our native wildlife, one of the greatest drivers of decline in agricultural productivity, is effectively managed.
The council says the $60m Supporting Communities Manage Pest Animals and Weeds program has effectively not been renewed, while the Saving Native Species Fund is extended for only two years and cut by 27%.
Overall, the council’s budget analysis shows reductions to at least 11 relevant programs funded by either the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry or the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
National Farmers Federation president Hamish McIntyre accused the government of walking away
from a national crisis, including by axing funding for the National Wild Dog Action Plan from November 30, halfway through a 10-year plan.
These funding cuts are deeply disappointing,
Mr McIntyre, a Queensland cattle and chicken farmer, told The Australian. We believe they are short-sighted decisions, especially in the face of a problem that multiplies quickly.
Wild dogs cost agriculture $302m a year. Rabbits cost us $197m a year. That’s a half-a-billion-dollar problem the government is walking away from — and that’s only two of the pests farmers are battling. Costs of managing these pests will only go up, further increasing pressure on farmers and the environment.
The federal government says the Supporting Communities program was not cut, with funds beyond 2026-27 always dependent on future budget processes.
And it is standing by its stance that the feral pest fight is not primarily
a federal responsibility. The on-ground management of established pest animals and weeds is primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments and landholders,
a government spokesman said.
The Albanese Labor government has committed more than $2bln in additional resourcing to strengthen Australia’s biosecurity since 2022, and will never compromise on biosecurity. The government is investing over $440m from 2025-26 to 2029-30 for nationally cost-shared pest and disease response programs.
NSW cattle and grain farmer Andrew Orman and his neighbours have spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to control feral pigs, hiring helicopters for aerial culling and putting up large traps. I've never seen them quite as bad as they are just now — we're getting inundated with pigs, eating canola and sorghum crops and doing damage,
Mr Orman said.
When you're growing summer and winter crops, you've always got something for the pigs to graze. I feel the federal government has abandoned us, in a lot of ways. Feral animal control needs to be at least maintained or stepped up — not cut back.
He had five to six feral pigs traps set up across his 2800ha in Goolhi and these had over the past six weeks captured on average 40 pigs a week.
Mr Gough said while landowners and state governments had a responsibility to deal with localised existing pest hotspots, the federal government had long assumed a lead role in preventing the spread of invasive species, and that means funding for boots on the ground and eyes in the field
.
We know when it comes to dealing with the spread of invasive species, whether deer, pigs, fire ants or weeds, if you take your foot off the gas, they'll spread into new areas, cause more damage, trash, trample and pollute the place,
Mr Gough said.
This is something the federal government cannot wash its hands of … it requires them to have a seat at the table. They do not get a seat at the table if they don't have funding. The cuts we've seen … will have real impact on the ground and in terms of research work vital for more effectively managing things like Amazon frogbit, a weed taking over river systems in Queensland, or the spread of feral deer in the Adelaide Hills.
The timing of the cuts was particularly damaging, coming as soaring aviation fuel costs curtailed aerial culling and when after big dries, conditions were ideal to hit populations while they were down, he said.
LOCAL CHATTER:
NEWS:
👀
AI makes
cheating
hard to find
Half of NSW teachers fear they cannot prevent students from using AI to cheat, with experts warning the technology threatens to undermine learning across the state’s schools, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports today.
Education consultancy Learning First surveyed more than 4000 NSW teachers and school leaders across government, Catholic and independent schools to reveal widespread worries about students' use of AI.
While the results show about half of teachers don't know how to prevent the technology being used for illegitimate purposes, many are already responding, with more than 40 per cent asking students to show evidence of their assessment process.
Four out of five primary and secondary teachers and school leaders whose students use AI for schoolwork are worried about the tech’s impact on education, while about half of secondary teachers say students already use AI for schoolwork.
Learning First chief executive Ben Jensen said that it was getting harder to detect AI cheating.
AI is getting increasingly good at mimicking a person’s handwriting, their use of vocabulary and their thought and writing process,
he told The Daily Telegraph.
Therefore, it becomes almost impossible to detect if it’s a piece of work or an essay is done by AI as opposed to a student. AI detection software is actually not that reliable.
The tech had the potential to negatively impact students' learning, Mr Jensen added. What AI does is basically shortcut the learning process and that means that while student work can look fantastic, there hasn't actually been any learning occurring,
he said.
Over time, this can get worse and worse because gaps in student learning will become larger, which magnifies problems later in their schooling.
The Independent Education Union of Australia NSW and ACT Branch has previously warned teachers are not AI enforcement police
and that new anti-plagiarism measures should not add to workloads. Concerns are also growing that AI is helping students cheat on exams.
Of secondary teachers whose students use AI for schoolwork, about three-quarters say students do so to complete assessments, even though more than 80% say students already face restrictions on using AI.
Mr Jensen said there was huge concern
across the world about the impact of AI in schools and argues a major rethink is needed to tackle AI cheating on exams. We're going to have to redo assessments in schools to actually identify those that are more susceptible to AI plagiarism,
he said.
There is no doubt that if parents and students start to lose faith in whether or not other students or some parts of the school sector are using AI to get higher marks in their HSC, then they can quickly start to lose faith in the system.
Learning First director Emily Pearson said the impacts of AI were already being felt.
AI has moved into schools faster than the plans exist to deal with its consequences,
she said.
[click the intro to return other stories]
💉
Weightloss
drugs under
miscroscope
A wave of prescription weight-loss medications has swept across Australia, reshaping how doctors treat obesity and forcing regulators into a race to keep up with demand, reports the news.com.au website today. [click to read more]
What were once tightly controlled diabetes treatments, drugs such as Ozempic, have become a mainstream option for obesity management. GLP-1 receptor agonists are now being used by hundreds of thousands of Australians each month, sparking major questions about safety, access and long-term health impacts.
Originally designed to improve blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, the medications are now widely used off-label for weight loss, with about 500,000 Australians estimated to be taking them.
Research has shown a rapid shift in prescribing patterns, particularly among younger people, women and patients without diabetes.
A NSW-based analysis of more than 5.5 million patients found semaglutide initiation rose sharply between 2020 and 2023, with non-diabetic patients increasing from 8% of new users in 2020 to 34% by 2023.
Women accounted for almost two-thirds of new prescriptions, while patients without diabetes were more likely to be younger and living in more advantaged areas.
Much of the uptake has occurred outside subsidised access, with patients paying between $350 and $600 a month privately when they do not meet Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme criteria.
Researchers estimate a substantial share of prescribing is occurring outside intended clinical guidelines.
The surge in demand also fuelled shortages in 2022 and 2023, leading to the emergence of compounded replica
versions of semaglutide. These unapproved products were not assessed for safety or quality by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
By mid-2024, about 20,000 Australians were believed to be using compounded versions before the Federal Government moved to ban the practice from October 2024. Regulators have also warned about counterfeit products being illegally imported.
As use expands, so too has the list of clinical concerns. The TGA has received reports of suicidal ideation linked to the drug class, while also issuing warnings about potential contraceptive failure with tirzepatide and surgical risks linked to delayed gastric emptying.
Anaesthetists have also raised concerns after cases of pulmonary aspiration during surgery in patients who had followed standard fasting guidelines but still had food in their stomachs. New guidance now recommends stricter pre-operative dietary preparation for patients on the medications.
Experts have additionally warned about muscle and bone loss during rapid weight reduction, with a significant portion of weight lost potentially coming from lean tissue rather than fat.
Health professionals are increasingly recommending resistance training and higher protein intake to counter the effects.
[click the intro to return to front page]
👯
A money
and fashion
quagmire
Anna Wintour has welcomed the Bezoses ∼ and their patronage ∼ with open arms. But after a controversial Met Gala, industry insiders are less enthusiastic, writes The Guardian website. [click to read the rest of the story].
The press conference for the Met Costume Institute’s spring exhibition is always a stately affair but this year it was giving feudal lady addresses her serfs
or perhaps Marie Antoinette during the last days of Versailles
. Here, among the spectacular marble sculptures of the art museum’s American wing, was a beaming Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who Anna Wintour introduced as a force for joy
, before adding that she and her husband, Jeff, have shown with this event that they genuinely, genuinely care about giving back
.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, protests against the Bezoses' involvement had been raging for days. The discrepancy between the word on the street and the deference within the glass-ceilinged room was head-spinning.
The Met Gala has recently become a magnet for anti-excess protests but this was its most controversial yet, owing to the $10m patronage of its honorary co-chairs, centibillionaires Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.
It was not the first time Jeff Bezos bankrolled the gala — Amazon was its lead sponsor in 2012. But this year’s event came at a moment of soaring inequality, as Bezos’s personal wealth has mushroomed and his Donald Trump-appeasing decisions have made him less popular than ever with New York City’s left-leaning fashion and arts crowd.
In protest of the gala, the group Everyone Hates Elon projected interviews with disgruntled Amazon workers on to the side of Bezos’s Manhattan penthouse and circulated 300 containers of fake urine within the museum, to highlight Amazon drivers' reports of having to work so relentlessly they must pee in bottles.
Some of the pushback came from fashion insiders themselves: former US Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson co-hosted a rival Ball Without Billionaires, putting Amazon workers on the catwalk and turned down work with a dream client to boycott the event.
Fashion has always had a talent for laundering. In these moments, it wraps the most sinister individuals in silk, under the warm glow of flashing lights and manages to convince us it’s culture. This is not new. But I have my limits,
Karefa-Johnson wrote on her Substack.
A further strand of criticism came from a very unlikely source: The Devil Wears Prada 2, a movie whose iconic editrix, Miranda Priestly, was inspired by Wintour herself.
Released a few days before the gala, its spookily on-the-nose plot centred on tech baron Benji Barnes’s attempts to buy the depleted Runway magazine for his girlfriend, Emily. While Barnes is a fictional character, he has certain Bezos-like qualities, including his post-divorce makeover (in the movie it is fueled by Sculptra, Ozempic and testosterone shots) and the storyline echoes unsubstantiated rumors that Bezos wants to buy Vogue for his wife.
Barnes delivers a chilling monologue about AI, anticipating a world where the magazine will publish without human involvement. The future just comes rushing at us like the lava of Pompeii,
he says, with a shrug, while Priestly ∼ the villain of the first movie ∼ heroically pushes back.
She slams Emily’s efforts to muscle her way into Runway using her partner’s cash with the very Priestly burn: You're not a visionary, you're a vendor.
According to screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, the plot’s similarity to real-world rumours is a coincidence — but casting a rapacious Silicon Valley oligarch as tyrant to the fashion class in one of the year’s biggest popcorn movies is also a reflection of the zeitgeist.
The cultural backlash has been such that you have to wonder whether fashion’s burgeoning relationship with the barons of tech will rupture.
The Met Gala plays a unique role in fashion culture, as the only major annual red carpet that enables designers to pursue their wildest, most creative instincts — which is why the frocks are so much riskier and at times hilarious, than those at the Oscars.
The gala also funds the Met’s Costume Institute, one of the world’s biggest and most comprehensive collections of historical clothing and its exhibitions, the most recent of which, Costume Art, saw Sánchez Bezos (and her cash) playing a particularly prominent role.
This year, the gala raised $42m. Tickets were a chilling $100,000, up from $35,000 in 2022, an inflation coinciding with an increasingly tech-oriented guestlist, which included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and staff from OpenAI. Any suggestion that Bezos, Brin and Zuckerberg, who have buddied up to Trump as his administration has defunded the arts, attended the Met Gala because they care about the preservation of archival garments feels slightly ridiculous.
[click the intro to return to front page]
COMMENT:
Murrurundi Times news site with items covering national news and Upper Hunter region including the township of Murrurundi
Federal Court has ruled against a women-only app founder in a landmark transgender discrimination case, forcing her to pay compensation and sparking fears about women’s rights, writes Peta Credlin in the Sunday Telegraph today. [click to read more]
On Friday afternoon, as I sat down to work on this column, I honestly didn't know where to focus first.
Was the biggest issue the loss of integrity in our public life, after the Prime Minister ("my word is my bond") admitted saying 50 times he would not change any of the rules around investment properties but did it anyway?
Or was it the reality, confirmed in the budget papers, that under Labor’s record high immigration, Australia will hit 30 million people by 2030, despite nowhere near enough housing for those here now? Or was it the revelation that Labor has just brought in death duties by stealth?
Giggle v Tickle
As I debated all of this, the Federal Court handed down its decision in the long-running Giggle v Tickle case, where Sall Grover, a woman and founder of a women’s online networking app (called Giggle For Girls) was accused of discrimination against a transgender woman, the biologically male Roxanne Tickle, who sought to join the women-only app.
In a devastating blow for the rights of women and girls in this country, the court rejected scientific fact and declared that sex was more than biology (it isn't), and so Grover lost and now owes compensation to Tickle.
The fact that the taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission was a part of this legal action to deny all women our biological rights is appalling. The fact that Grover now has to rely on donations from ordinary people to defend rights that should not need defending says everything about the state of woke policy and activist courts in Australia.
But what’s perhaps most galling of all is that we are only in this position of denying chromosomal reality because Julia Gillard, ironically the first female prime minister, stripped the word woman
from the sex discrimination act. Before then, this case would never have got to court.
Anyone for any toilet
But what this latest decision does (and let’s hope it gets overturned when Sall Grover heads to the High Court), is that women’s sport, toilets, access to medical services, schools, clubs, domestic violence shelters, prisons ∼ the whole box and dice ∼ are open slather to any man who declares he is a woman.
Gender used to be what you called yourself, sex is what XY or XX made you. Not any more, thanks to this decision. And Gillard too, who changed the law just TWO DAYS before she was rolled by Kevin Rudd in June 2013 — how dare she lecture anyone on misogyny.
But on Friday afternoon, the bad news kept coming.
To add Labor insult to Labor injury, dropped out when they hoped no-one was watching was news from the Victorian government that not only was Daniel Andrews going to get a bronze statue in his honour but that it was already being made. You can't make this stuff up, can you?
In memory of stupidity
Given Victoria has a daily interest bill of $24 million, a $130,000 statue is a rounding-error but it’s the attempt to force Victorians to honour the man who locked them up for two years, ruined businesses, blew out debt, kowtowed to China, dialled up woke and made the once-proud state an international laughing stock that’s tipped people over the edge.
Am I the only one asking how the heck did we get here?
And, more to the point, how do we turn it around or, God forbid, is it even possible?
Never trust any leader again
If Albanese is allowed to get away with his massive budget lie, then we will never be able to trust any leader again. And if we can't ask questions before an election and base our decisions on what they tell us and hold them to it, then democracy is dead.
For all of Labor’s talk about intergenerational equity, the budget hits younger Australians the hardest. The PM says breaking his word on negative gearing is about them, but how can it be when they will never be able to use negatively gearing (as he has) to build up a nest egg but those doing it now can keep it up?
Buy a new-build property instead, Labor tells investors. But again, how’s that fair for young people given this is what they typically buy as a first home and, now, they're going to face even more competition as investors move in? Even Labor’s own budget papers admit that these changes will likely increase rents (as they did in the Keating era before he was forced to back down) and do little to increase the stock of available homes.
And then there’s the tax on aspiration (CGT changes) before they get you from the grave (the hit on trusts).
Liberal backbone
Thankfully, the Liberals have finally found a bit of policy backbone, and a bit of political mongrel.
Angus Taylor’s reply to Labor’s budget speech felt like the start of the Coalition getting its mojo back. He made the bold move to end bracket creep once and for all by indexing income tax thresholds, meaning low- and middle-income earners won't get punished for getting ahead. On migration, he went for the jugular and landed a bullseye if the hyperventilating from Labor MPs is any guide. The PM in particular was hysterical, declaring it was un-Australian to divide people between those who are migrant and those who are not.
That is not what Taylor did. He divided them between Australian citizen and non-citizen and said that, under the Coalition, only citizens would get access to the pension, the dole, the NDIS and other welfare.
Help for no commitment
Now what is unfair about that? Why should your taxes carry people who have made no formal commitment to this country? Right now, people can live here for decades, take the money and never pledge loyalty to Australia and its people. Taylor says not any more.
Add in the Treasurer’s announcement of a new Working Australians Tax Offset (a pollster-named handout if ever there was one) of $250 a year (or $4.80 a week) and rightly people are angry. In his budget speech, Jim Chalmers called his WATO meaningful
but what’s meaningful about 68 cents a day when the cost of everything has skyrocketed? It’s not meaningful, it’s insulting.
(And I might add, it’s still not even the $275 Albanese promised off their power bills).
Albo's right for a change
Anthony Albanese said that this budget is full of Labor values
and it is — the socialist values
that attack the fair-go, break trust, and hit middle Australia even harder
For the Liberals, there could be no better ground than this to fight Labor.
If the Coalition holds its nerve and campaigns every day like its life depends on it (because, frankly, it does) then this budget could well be the beginning of the end for the Albanese government.
But only if they work, day and night, to take the fight up to Labor. Labor is the target, not each other and not One Nation.
THUMBS UP
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: Her emotional, fighting speech in the Senate is a must-watch as she demanded culture
takes a back seat to better protect Aboriginal children.
THUMBS DOWN
Military witch hunt: Another $43m in Labor’s budget to investigate soldiers on top of the $350m that the Brereton process has cost taxpayers already.
Murrurundi Times news site with items covering national news and Upper Hunter region including the township of Murrurundi
"Promises and pie-crust," Jonathan Swift wrote in 1738, "are made to be broken." Vladimir Lenin, who liked the line, treated it as a slogan. Anthony Albanese treats it as a principle, Henry Ergas points out in the The Australian today. [click to read more]
The Prime Minister’s defence for repudiating assurances he had insistently reiterated ∼ indeed, for the 50th time
∼ is that Australia faces a crisis of intergenerational equity. But as Jonathan Pincus and I demonstrated on these pages, the claim is analytically incoherent and empirically threadbare. Nor, even if there were such inequities, would that justify the abrupt abandonment of repeatedly affirmed undertakings.
Serious governments seek democratic consent for contentious measures they had previously assured voters they would not introduce. John Howard did so with the GST: having ruled it out, he reversed openly, took it to the 1998 election, and proceeded only on the mandate he won there.
Greatest tax take in commonwealth history
The reason the Albanese government has not followed suit is neither urgency nor necessity. It is fear: fear that despite the opposition’s parlous state, voters would punish a government that has spent freely, governed carelessly and is now poised to extract the greatest tax take in commonwealth history.
The budget’s own numbers make the reality plain. Even accepting Treasury’s assumptions, the budget measures will increase housing supply over the next decade by less than one-third of 1%, while housing demand is likely to rise more than 15 times as quickly. This is not serious economic reform. It is a revenue grab wrapped in the language of moral urgency.
Corroding public trust
The inevitable result of that gap between political rhetoric and political practice is to corrode public trust. Trust, after all, is not a natural disposition; it is a social achievement, slowly accumulated and quickly squandered.
The word itself reveals the point. The Old English treow
lies behind both truth
and trust
; since at least the 15th century, to trust
someone has meant to believe that when he says what he will do, he speaks truthfully. Governments can sustain trust only by being truthful and trustworthy — and the institutional form through which those virtues manifest themselves is the promise.
A promise is what binds words to conduct, declarations to action, and electoral consent to subsequent government. Governments owe fidelity to their promises not merely for their own political advantage; they owe it because a healthy democratic life depends upon citizens being able to assume and assess fidelity to public commitments.
Governments need to mean what they say
The credibility of promises is also more broadly crucial to the viability of a free society, whose very essence is that people must order their lives amid continual uncertainty. Promises, including the promise that laws will not be changed capriciously, are what give individuals, families and businesses stable ground on which to plan. As Hannah Arendt wisely observed, they build islands of predictability
in the ocean of uncertainty
— islands that matter most to those with the fewest resources to absorb sudden policy shocks.
A young couple relying on an investment property to finance homeownership, a retiree dependent on hard-earned savings, a small business weighing expansion: all rely on governments meaning what they say.
But promises can only fulfil that stabilising role because they belong to the grammar of commitment: to the forms of obligation whose value lies in their relative insulation from changing convenience. A promise abandoned the moment it becomes burdensome is worth no more than the loyalty that melts away at the first sign of difficulty.
The preservation of credible public commitments is especially vital in Australia, where suspicion of the political process long predates contemporary disenchantment. Distrust of politicians was, as John Hirst emphasised, constitutive of the colonial polity itself. The men who entered politics were not thought fit to be trusted - and despite outstanding exceptions, many weren't.
Pioneering scholars of mass behaviour
The endless Australian debate over the accountability of parliamentarians reflected that suspicion. Both the Burkean trustee ∼ who is guided only by the light of his own judgment ∼ and the instructed delegate had their advocates. But it was the latter conception, entrenched by the emerging Labor Party, that ultimately prevailed. Labor parliamentarians were to be mere instruments: controlled by the ALP’s extra-parliamentary wing, bound by a pledge to uphold the platform and required to submit to caucus discipline on pain of political excommunication.
The Australian mass party thus emerged, from the beginning, as an institutional response to distrust: a mechanism designed less to cultivate confidence in politicians than to contain the risks they posed once elected. And Australian voters learned to scrutinise the distance between promise and performance with an intensity rare in comparable democracies. When that gap widened too far, confidence collapsed.
It is against this background that the events of the past three years must be seen. The Albanese government’s record on the central tax promises of two successive elections ∼ stage three, superannuation, and now negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount ∼ does not just constitute a litany of broken commitments; it constitutes the accelerated dismantling of an already tarnished public asset.
The predictable effect is an even more accelerated crisis of political representation. The four-decade arc from 1975’s 4% third-party vote to 2025’s 34% highlights its seemingly inexorable progression.
Withdrawing faithfulness
Those voters who have spurned the major parties are not ideological partisans of any third force; they are observant citizens who, having grasped what the parties no longer deliver, exercise the only sanction the system leaves them. Unable to meaningfully demand or expect faithfulness to a program from parties whose programs have ceased to bind, they withdraw their own faithfulness from those parties altogether.
The alternatives may not be especially attractive nor particularly unifying — but negative coalitions, aimed at punishing a detested foe, form more easily than positive ones precisely because they require only shared aversion rather than common aspiration. In these conditions, anti-system parties flourish, their capacity to aggregate voters a symptom not of democratic renewal but of democratic exhaustion.
To make things worse, governments confronted by a perpetually seething electorate are naturally tempted to govern through stealth and administrative manoeuvre, further impairing the trust whose disappearance produced the crisis of representation in the first place. And when a real, rather than confected, emergency arrives, they discover they can no longer summon the loyalties and willingness to sacrifice on which the survival of free societies ultimately depends.
Public language becomes tactical
No society can govern itself for long on the assumption that public language is merely tactical. Governments that repeatedly break faith with the electorate may secure temporary advantages. But they do so by undermining the confidence that policies announced today will survive long enough to shape behaviour tomorrow. As that confidence erodes, both the effectiveness of public policy and force of democratic authority unravel.
That is the deeper significance of the Albanese government’s conduct. It is not merely bad policy. It is the depletion of a civic inheritance that free societies squander far more easily than they rebuild. Yes, promises can be cracked like pie crusts. But in the end, public trust cracks with them. Lenin, sheltered by brutal authoritarianism, never had to learn that lesson. With the fabric of our democracy rapidly fraying, it is high time Anthony Albanese did.
FEATURE:
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Ω
The budget is squeezing every Australian — but Barefoot Investor says the angriest critics have got it dead wrong. Here's the scathing reality check that will make you furious.
No
guilded
lillies
here!
Scott Pape in Daily Telegraph
A
fter reading this column, my editor said: I'm confident this piece will generate the greatest amount of hate mail you've ever received.
Let's see if they're right … Do you know what the easiest thing I could have done this week was? Exactly what every other financial commentator has done: Lean into the outrage about the budget.
Instead, I'm going the other way. And I'm probably going to piss a lot of you off. Starting with Brian, who wrote to me after what I can only imagine was a solid session on the La-Z-Boy with a few reds:
Labor's tax grab?
Scott, I am just so sick of these incompetent bastards. This budget is just another giant Labor tax grab. People in the top 10% of income earners pay more than half the taxes. Half! Now Albo wants to be a 47% silent partner in every small business in the country. Why would anyone bother? Young people saving for a deposit in index funds? Taxed.
Family trusts helping kids through university? Taxed. Small business owners who've spent decades building something? Taxed at rates that would make your eyes water.
New Zealand has no capital gains tax. Dubai has no capital gains tax. And our smartest young people are figuring that out real fast. You've got the platform, Scott. Let your followers know what’s really going on.
Bingo-bango, Brian! You've sure got a lot of very big feelings. Thankfully, I'm a father of four. I deal with big feelings before breakfast.
Let’s get into it.
Brian and I have a lot in common. I'm a high income earner and I pay a lot of tax. I come from a family of small business owners and I run one myself. And I bristle when I see politicians crowing about their economic credentials. The fact is, this is the highest-taxing Australian government since World War Two, and that spending is putting pressure on interest rates that every mortgage holder feels.
Yet what really worries me isn't the tax take. It’s that our outrage meter seems to be stuck at 11.
It feels like we're drifting towards America, where everything is viewed through a political lens and everyone is absolutely furious all the time.
Barefoot has given a scathing budget reality check.
And if we get angry enough we might just end up with Pauline as our PM, and the greatest economic insight she’s ever had was asking Why can't we just print more money?
(Seriously, look it up.)
Anyway, let’s deal with Brian’s three beefs. Plenty of young people have written to me in a panic about the changes to capital gains tax. Many were planning to use their share portfolio as a house deposit.
CGT not biggest problem
My view? The CGT change is not their biggest problem. Let’s say a young investor puts $50k into an Aussie index fund. Based on historical returns, it grows to around $72k over five years. Under the new CGT rules, they'd pay roughly $900 more tax when they sell. And depending on future returns and inflation, they might actually come out ahead.
The real problem is the share market dropping 40% and their $72,000 deposit becoming $43,000. Then it takes a decade to recover, while rents keep rising and they're still at their parents' place eating their Cheerios. That’s why my rule has never changed: do not save for a house deposit in the share market.
Business partner!
Brian’s 47 per cent silent partner
line was funny on social media the first 700 times. Now it’s just annoying. And it’s wrong. The small business CGT concession regime allows the vast majority of small business owners to halve or completely eliminate the capital gains tax they pay when they sell. It’s been there for years (though the thresholds need to be increased.)
The real risk is using the tax rate as a reason not to back yourself. Building something from nothing, employing people, serving your community. It’s a hard life. It’s also one of the most rewarding things a person can do. Don't let a meme talk you out of it.
The family trust
Okay, so this one stings. You see, my kids have been nothing but a spectacular financial loss since the day they arrived. I was counting down the days until they turned 18, when I could finally start distributing trust income to them and claw something back. And then the bloody government snapped that door shut just as my eldest was getting close to useful.
Yet it actually makes sense. The system lets wealthy families with good accountants pay less tax than nurses and tradies. That doesn't pass the pub test.
Finally, if you spend enough time on social media (or listen to Brian) you may start to think that Australia is the highest-taxed nation on earth. Actually, we're in the middle of the pack, but with a standard of living in the top handful of countries on the planet. The cops don't shake us down (mostly). Our kids go to decent public schools (mostly). And if one of them gets sick, you don't need a GoFundMe page.
We'll be fine. After all, we're the wealthiest people in the country. Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. At the richest time in human history. Life is good, Brian, especially when you log off. Tread Your Own Path!
Financially abusing my brother
Hi Scott: My brother just divorced his nasty wife. She had access to all his accounts, blew through a $180,000 inheritance, ran up $25,000 on his credit card, and towards the end wouldn't even let him touch his own debit card. He’s now living with me. He’s on a disability pension and can't work. I manage his accounts, have set-up his savings, and have tried to teach him the basics. He says it’s too hard. My sister accuses me of making it worse. Am I doing more harm than good?
Hello Caring Sister, your brother is lucky to have you.Your sister doesn't sound nice, but she does have a point. (How’s that for having it both ways?)
Now, before you throw me across the room, I know your intentions are completely different from his nasty ex-wife’s. You love your brother. She didn't. But, from where he’s standing, someone else is still controlling his money, his savings, and his decisions.
Now your bro doesn't need to become the next Warren Buffett. He just needs to learn to stand on his own two feet again, but that won't happen while you're transferring his surplus savings for him.
Think about how this plays out long term. Your brother grows increasingly dependent on you. You grow increasingly resentful … and neither of you need that.
My advice? Keep helping him with the basics. Set him up with one simple account, show him how to use his card, and then step back. Let him make small mistakes with small money. That’s how people learn. And then, when the settlement comes, he'll be ready to move out and start his new life. That’s good for him, and great for you.
No Show Albo
Scott: As a man who lost the family home because of my gambling addiction (a shame I live with every day), and as a father whose teenage son 'plays' fantasy football and gets emails and ads from sports gambling companies, I was bitterly disappointed that the government tried to bury their inaction on gambling ads. Did you get a reply from the Prime Minister?
Hi Daniel: I wasn't expecting a reply, and old Albo didn't disappoint!
He’s the most powerful man in Australian politics. He had the backing from both sides of politics, and the people — nearly three-quarters of parents (myself included) reported being bothered by their kids being exposed to gambling ads.
He had the ability to stand up and say: We've got a huge gambling problem on our hands, and the beginning of that problem is that sport is a gateway to gambling: today for three in four kids it’s a normal part of sport. That’s crap. I'm the Prime Minister of this country and I've had enough. No more bloody ads.
But he didn't.
The lobbyists won, the kids lost — the odds never change.
OVERSEAS:
Supemarket's shrinking patrons
Ruth Igielnik writes in The New York Times concern about rising prices has reached a fever pitch as Americans sit down to Memorial Day barbecues today (May 25) across the country. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents said that they had changed their purchases from grocery stores to stay within budget in the last several months, according to polling from CNN. Another 59 percent of Americans said they had cut back on extras and entertainment. More than three quarters of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans, said President Trump's policies had increased the cost of living in their community. Survey after survey has found that Americans are feeling growing financial uncertainty. Nearly half of all voters gave the economy the lowest rating, "poor," in the latest New York Times/Siena poll, up 11 percentage points since January. And economic confidence has hit a four-year low, according to Gallup. Gas prices have continued to soar nationally, rising above $4.50 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. Nearly 80 percent of voters ∼ including a majority of Republicans ∼ say the Trump administration is responsible for this price hike, according to polling from Fox News. Large majorities also blamed oil companies, the war in Iran and government regulations. All in all, a solid majority of voters in the Fox poll, 57 percent, say that Mr. Trump's policies have hurt the country, up from 51 percent who said the same one year ago. MORE NUMBERS ABOUT AMERICA … ● 51 Percent of Americans Think the War in Iran Has Not Been Worthwhile. ● Only 21% of Americans Support the United States Initiating an Attack on Iran. ● 68% of Americans Say Trump Has the Wrong Priorities and ● 64% of Americans Disapprove of Trump's Tariffs.
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The tik-toks have it
At Milan Design Week, just following Watches and Wonders, Jaeger-LeCoultre staged The Perpetual Timekeeper, a sprawling two-floor exhibition dedicated not to wristwatches, but to Atmos clocks-the mysterious, glass-encased objects that have quietly occupied one of the most intriguing corners of the maison's history since 1928. ROBB Report.
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No women here!
A bill to create a Smithsonian American Women's History Museum on the National Mall was rejected by the US House of Representatives on Thursday, after it was amended to recognise only "biological" females, the New York Times reports. The bill designated a location for the long-awaited museum, which has had bipartisan support. But after Republicans amended the bill, including its definition of women, Democrats sank it in a vote of 216 to 204. Some said that any provision specifying the achievements of "biological women" threatened to exclude transgender women and girls from the institution's programming.
The Murrurundi Times is owned, compiled and written by Des Dugan. Email
The strange thing about recessions is that most people do not realise they are in one until long after it has already started. At first it feels subtle. A friend loses their job. A business quietly cuts staff. Job ads disappear. People stop spending as freely and mortgage stress starts creeping higher. Then eventually the official data catches up and politicians stand in front of cameras pretending nobody could have seen it coming, Daily Telegraph reports on today's website. [click to continue reading]
ASX Trader writes in the Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper and that is why one number released last week matters far more than most people realise.
Australia’s unemployment rate has now jumped from 4.3% to 4.5%.
On the surface, that may not sound catastrophic.
But unemployment is one of the most delayed economic indicators there is.
By the time unemployment visibly rises, the slowdown has usually already begun underneath the surface.
Businesses have already slowed hiring, expansion plans have already weakened and households are already feeling pressure behind closed doors.
And there is another reason this latest move matters.
Technical analysis of Australia’s unemployment trend is now flashing a signal that has only appeared four times before in modern history.
The previous signals occurred around the: ◘ 1991 recession ◘ 2000 dot-com collapse ◘ 2007 global financial crisis and ◘ the 2020 COVID downturn.
Each period was followed by major economic weakness. While no indicator is perfect, the historical pattern is difficult to ignore.
Importantly, recessions are almost never officially recognised in real time.
Governments typically only confirm a recession after two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth have already occurred. By then, many Australians have already been living through it for months.
What makes the environment particularly concerning is unemployment is now beginning to rise while inflation remains stubbornly elevated.
Economists have a name for that combination: stagflation.
Back to the 1970s
It is the same economic backdrop that caused significant disruption globally during the 1970s, characterised by weak growth, rising unemployment and persistent inflation occurring simultaneously.
Australia’s inflation pressures have frequently been blamed on global instability, geopolitical conflict and supply chain disruptions.
Those factors certainly matter.
But many of the foundations for today’s inflation problem were established well before recent international tensions escalated as I wrote about months ago: Interest rate rises: Why we could be in for 40 years of hell.
For decades, wages and property prices broadly moved together.
But following the introduction of capital gains tax discounts in 1999, combined with falling interest rates, increase in immigration, negative gearing incentives and expanding access to credit, property prices began dramatically outpacing income growth.
Wealth and keeping pace
Australians who already owned assets experienced enormous wealth gains. Those relying solely on wages increasingly struggled to keep pace.
That divide has become one of the defining economic stories of modern Australia.
Importantly, the property market has never been driven purely by supply shortages alone. Housing values are heavily influenced by borrowing capacity and lending conditions.
As interest rates rise and banks tighten lending standards, borrowing power falls.
That weakens demand even if housing supply remains constrained.
Signs of this shift are already emerging.
Flaws in the arguement
For years, many argued housing shortages alone would keep property prices rising forever. Immigration remained strong, vacancy rates collapsed and supply struggled to keep up.
But there was one major flaw in that argument.
Property prices are not driven purely by supply and demand. They are heavily driven by credit availability and government policy.
Property is priced at the margin.
That means prices are often set by the small group of buyers who can still access enough credit to pay higher prices. When banks loosen lending and borrowing capacity rises, property prices usually rise with it.
The reverse is now happening. Higher interest rates, tighter lending standards and policy changes are crushing borrowing capacity across the country.
Auction clearance rates have already fallen sharply compared to this time last year, with some markets dropping from high 70% into the 40-50% range. That signals buyers are becoming more cautious while borrowing conditions tighten further.
And now another major pressure point is emerging.
The Federal Government’s proposed negative gearing changes are already impacting investor lending before the laws have even taken effect.
Under the changes announced in the federal budget, investors purchasing established homes after May 12, 2026 will gradually lose access to negative gearing benefits from July 2027 onwards.
Only newly built properties that add housing supply will retain the full concessions moving forward. Existing investors have largely been grandfathered into the old system.
Banks are already responding
Banks are already responding. Macquarie has confirmed it will no longer fully include negative gearing tax benefits in serviceability calculations for many investment loans.
Westpac has also flagged similar changes, while other major lenders continue reviewing policy updates.
Early estimates suggest investor borrowing capacity could fall between 10% and 20%, with some brokers warning certain buyers may lose far more.
That matters enormously because property markets rely on credit expansion.
When investors suddenly lose borrowing power, demand weakens quickly even if housing supply remains tight. Investors who once could comfortably purchase a property may now find themselves sidelined entirely.
The broader concern is that multiple pressures are now feeding into each other at the same time. Higher inflation keeps rates elevated. Elevated rates reduce borrowing capacity. Lower borrowing capacity weakens housing demand while affordability pressures continue rising for ordinary Australians.
It’s remarkable watching the 18-year property cycle continue unfolding almost exactly as discussed last year. The same themes flagged early, rising inflation, tighter credit conditions, weaker affordability and shifting government policy, are now playing out in real time: Interest rate hikes: ASX Trader — rate shock is only just beginning.
For years, many Australians believed property prices could only move in one direction because that was all they had experienced.
Cycles matter
But cycles have always mattered. Cheap money helped fuel one of the strongest property booms in Australian history. Now that era may be changing.
None of this guarantees a sudden property collapse tomorrow.
Property cycles move slowly. But it does suggest the easy money phase that drove much of the previous boom is likely behind us.
And perhaps most importantly, it shows how quickly the narrative changes.
Last year the story was endless growth and unstoppable demand.
Today the conversation is shifting toward affordability stress, tighter credit, weakening auction results and persistent inflation.
The war may dominate the headlines.
But Australia’s inflation story started long before that.
| 🐗 | The big culling cut retreat |
The Albanese government has been accused of walking away
from the nation’s fight against feral pests, as an analysis reveals significant federal budget cuts across multiple pest and disease programs, reports The Australian today's website.
[click to read more]
There is rising concern the government is retreating from national funding and co-ordination to stop the spread of weeds and feral pests ∼ pigs, rabbits, deer, fire ants and wild dogs ∼ that costs agriculture $5.3bln a year.
Seeing the federal government departing this space would be a real blow to the effective management of feral species,
Invasive Species Council chief executive Jack Gough told The Australian.
The council says the $60m Supporting Communities Manage Pest Animals and Weeds program has effectively not been renewed, while the Saving Native Species Fund is extended for only two years and cut by 27%.
Overall, the council’s budget analysis shows reductions to at least 11 relevant programs funded by either the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry or the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
National Farmers Federation president Hamish McIntyre accused the government of The federal government says the Supporting Communities program was not cut, with funds beyond 2026-27 always dependent on future budget processes.
And it is standing by its stance that the feral pest fight is not NSW cattle and grain farmer Andrew Orman and his neighbours have spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to control feral pigs, hiring helicopters for aerial culling and putting up large traps. He had five to six feral pigs traps set up across his 2800ha in Goolhi and these had over the past six weeks captured on average 40 pigs a week.
Mr Gough said while landowners and state governments had a responsibility to deal with localised existing pest hotspots, the federal government had long assumed a lead role in preventing the spread of invasive species, The timing of the cuts was particularly damaging, coming as soaring aviation fuel costs curtailed aerial culling and when after big dries, conditions were ideal to hit populations while they were down, he said.
I am very concerned if the federal government thinks this isn't their responsibility because this is absolutely a national priority for Australians who know the value of our rivers, who know the value of our farmland, of our forests. And who want to see them protected from invasive species.
It is absolutely a federal responsibility to be ensuring that the management of one of the greatest threats to our native wildlife, one of the greatest drivers of decline in agricultural productivity, is effectively managed.
walking away
from a national crisis, including by axing funding for the National Wild Dog Action Plan from November 30, halfway through a 10-year plan.
These funding cuts are deeply disappointing,
Mr McIntyre, a Queensland cattle and chicken farmer, told The Australian. We believe they are short-sighted decisions, especially in the face of a problem that multiplies quickly.
Wild dogs cost agriculture $302m a year. Rabbits cost us $197m a year. That’s a half-a-billion-dollar problem the government is walking away from — and that’s only two of the pests farmers are battling. Costs of managing these pests will only go up, further increasing pressure on farmers and the environment.
primarily
a federal responsibility. The on-ground management of established pest animals and weeds is primarily the responsibility of state and territory governments and landholders,
a government spokesman said.
The Albanese Labor government has committed more than $2bln in additional resourcing to strengthen Australia’s biosecurity since 2022, and will never compromise on biosecurity. The government is investing over $440m from 2025-26 to 2029-30 for nationally cost-shared pest and disease response programs.
I've never seen them quite as bad as they are just now — we're getting inundated with pigs, eating canola and sorghum crops and doing damage,
Mr Orman said.
When you're growing summer and winter crops, you've always got something for the pigs to graze. I feel the federal government has abandoned us, in a lot of ways. Feral animal control needs to be at least maintained or stepped up — not cut back.
and that means funding for boots on the ground and eyes in the field
.
We know when it comes to dealing with the spread of invasive species, whether deer, pigs, fire ants or weeds, if you take your foot off the gas, they'll spread into new areas, cause more damage, trash, trample and pollute the place,
Mr Gough said.
This is something the federal government cannot wash its hands of … it requires them to have a seat at the table. They do not get a seat at the table if they don't have funding. The cuts we've seen … will have real impact on the ground and in terms of research work vital for more effectively managing things like Amazon frogbit, a weed taking over river systems in Queensland, or the spread of feral deer in the Adelaide Hills.
| 👀 | AI makes cheating hard to find |
Half of NSW teachers fear they cannot prevent students from using AI to cheat, with experts warning the technology threatens to undermine learning across the state’s schools, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports today.
Education consultancy Learning First surveyed more than 4000 NSW teachers and school leaders across government, Catholic and independent schools to reveal widespread worries about students' use of AI.
While the results show about half of teachers don't know how to prevent the technology being used for illegitimate purposes, many are already responding, with more than 40 per cent asking students to show evidence of their assessment process.
Four out of five primary and secondary teachers and school leaders whose students use AI for schoolwork are worried about the tech’s impact on education, while about half of secondary teachers say students already use AI for schoolwork.
Learning First chief executive Ben Jensen said that it was getting harder to detect AI cheating.
AI is getting increasingly good at mimicking a person’s handwriting, their use of vocabulary and their thought and writing process,
he told The Daily Telegraph.
Therefore, it becomes almost impossible to detect if it’s a piece of work or an essay is done by AI as opposed to a student. AI detection software is actually not that reliable.
The tech had the potential to negatively impact students' learning, Mr Jensen added. What AI does is basically shortcut the learning process and that means that while student work can look fantastic, there hasn't actually been any learning occurring,
he said.
Over time, this can get worse and worse because gaps in student learning will become larger, which magnifies problems later in their schooling.
The Independent Education Union of Australia NSW and ACT Branch has previously warned teachers are not AI enforcement police
and that new anti-plagiarism measures should not add to workloads. Concerns are also growing that AI is helping students cheat on exams.
Of secondary teachers whose students use AI for schoolwork, about three-quarters say students do so to complete assessments, even though more than 80% say students already face restrictions on using AI.
Mr Jensen said there was huge concern
across the world about the impact of AI in schools and argues a major rethink is needed to tackle AI cheating on exams. We're going to have to redo assessments in schools to actually identify those that are more susceptible to AI plagiarism,
he said.
There is no doubt that if parents and students start to lose faith in whether or not other students or some parts of the school sector are using AI to get higher marks in their HSC, then they can quickly start to lose faith in the system.
Learning First director Emily Pearson said the impacts of AI were already being felt.
AI has moved into schools faster than the plans exist to deal with its consequences,
she said.
[click the intro to return other stories]
| 💉 | Weightloss drugs under miscroscope |
A wave of prescription weight-loss medications has swept across Australia, reshaping how doctors treat obesity and forcing regulators into a race to keep up with demand, reports the news.com.au website today. [click to read more]
What were once tightly controlled diabetes treatments, drugs such as Ozempic, have become a mainstream option for obesity management. GLP-1 receptor agonists are now being used by hundreds of thousands of Australians each month, sparking major questions about safety, access and long-term health impacts.
Originally designed to improve blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, the medications are now widely used off-label for weight loss, with about 500,000 Australians estimated to be taking them.
Research has shown a rapid shift in prescribing patterns, particularly among younger people, women and patients without diabetes.
A NSW-based analysis of more than 5.5 million patients found semaglutide initiation rose sharply between 2020 and 2023, with non-diabetic patients increasing from 8% of new users in 2020 to 34% by 2023.
Women accounted for almost two-thirds of new prescriptions, while patients without diabetes were more likely to be younger and living in more advantaged areas.
Much of the uptake has occurred outside subsidised access, with patients paying between $350 and $600 a month privately when they do not meet Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme criteria.
Researchers estimate a substantial share of prescribing is occurring outside intended clinical guidelines.
The surge in demand also fuelled shortages in 2022 and 2023, leading to the emergence of compounded replica
versions of semaglutide. These unapproved products were not assessed for safety or quality by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
By mid-2024, about 20,000 Australians were believed to be using compounded versions before the Federal Government moved to ban the practice from October 2024. Regulators have also warned about counterfeit products being illegally imported.
As use expands, so too has the list of clinical concerns. The TGA has received reports of suicidal ideation linked to the drug class, while also issuing warnings about potential contraceptive failure with tirzepatide and surgical risks linked to delayed gastric emptying.
Anaesthetists have also raised concerns after cases of pulmonary aspiration during surgery in patients who had followed standard fasting guidelines but still had food in their stomachs. New guidance now recommends stricter pre-operative dietary preparation for patients on the medications.
Experts have additionally warned about muscle and bone loss during rapid weight reduction, with a significant portion of weight lost potentially coming from lean tissue rather than fat.
Health professionals are increasingly recommending resistance training and higher protein intake to counter the effects.
[click the intro to return to front page]| 👯 | A money and fashion quagmire |
Anna Wintour has welcomed the Bezoses ∼ and their patronage ∼ with open arms. But after a controversial Met Gala, industry insiders are less enthusiastic, writes The Guardian website. [click to read the rest of the story].
The press conference for the Met Costume Institute’s spring exhibition is always a stately affair but this year it was giving feudal lady addresses her serfs
or perhaps Marie Antoinette during the last days of Versailles
. Here, among the spectacular marble sculptures of the art museum’s American wing, was a beaming Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who Anna Wintour introduced as a force for joy
, before adding that she and her husband, Jeff, have shown with this event that they genuinely, genuinely care about giving back
.
Meanwhile, in the outside world, protests against the Bezoses' involvement had been raging for days. The discrepancy between the word on the street and the deference within the glass-ceilinged room was head-spinning.
The Met Gala has recently become a magnet for anti-excess protests but this was its most controversial yet, owing to the $10m patronage of its honorary co-chairs, centibillionaires Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos.
It was not the first time Jeff Bezos bankrolled the gala — Amazon was its lead sponsor in 2012. But this year’s event came at a moment of soaring inequality, as Bezos’s personal wealth has mushroomed and his Donald Trump-appeasing decisions have made him less popular than ever with New York City’s left-leaning fashion and arts crowd.
In protest of the gala, the group Everyone Hates Elon projected interviews with disgruntled Amazon workers on to the side of Bezos’s Manhattan penthouse and circulated 300 containers of fake urine within the museum, to highlight Amazon drivers' reports of having to work so relentlessly they must pee in bottles.
Some of the pushback came from fashion insiders themselves: former US Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson co-hosted a rival Ball Without Billionaires, putting Amazon workers on the catwalk and turned down work with a dream client to boycott the event.
Fashion has always had a talent for laundering. In these moments, it wraps the most sinister individuals in silk, under the warm glow of flashing lights and manages to convince us it’s culture. This is not new. But I have my limits,
Karefa-Johnson wrote on her Substack.
A further strand of criticism came from a very unlikely source: The Devil Wears Prada 2, a movie whose iconic editrix, Miranda Priestly, was inspired by Wintour herself.
Released a few days before the gala, its spookily on-the-nose plot centred on tech baron Benji Barnes’s attempts to buy the depleted Runway magazine for his girlfriend, Emily. While Barnes is a fictional character, he has certain Bezos-like qualities, including his post-divorce makeover (in the movie it is fueled by Sculptra, Ozempic and testosterone shots) and the storyline echoes unsubstantiated rumors that Bezos wants to buy Vogue for his wife.
Barnes delivers a chilling monologue about AI, anticipating a world where the magazine will publish without human involvement. The future just comes rushing at us like the lava of Pompeii,
he says, with a shrug, while Priestly ∼ the villain of the first movie ∼ heroically pushes back.
She slams Emily’s efforts to muscle her way into Runway using her partner’s cash with the very Priestly burn: You're not a visionary, you're a vendor.
According to screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, the plot’s similarity to real-world rumours is a coincidence — but casting a rapacious Silicon Valley oligarch as tyrant to the fashion class in one of the year’s biggest popcorn movies is also a reflection of the zeitgeist.
The cultural backlash has been such that you have to wonder whether fashion’s burgeoning relationship with the barons of tech will rupture.
The Met Gala plays a unique role in fashion culture, as the only major annual red carpet that enables designers to pursue their wildest, most creative instincts — which is why the frocks are so much riskier and at times hilarious, than those at the Oscars.
The gala also funds the Met’s Costume Institute, one of the world’s biggest and most comprehensive collections of historical clothing and its exhibitions, the most recent of which, Costume Art, saw Sánchez Bezos (and her cash) playing a particularly prominent role.
This year, the gala raised $42m. Tickets were a chilling $100,000, up from $35,000 in 2022, an inflation coinciding with an increasingly tech-oriented guestlist, which included Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg and staff from OpenAI. Any suggestion that Bezos, Brin and Zuckerberg, who have buddied up to Trump as his administration has defunded the arts, attended the Met Gala because they care about the preservation of archival garments feels slightly ridiculous. [click the intro to return to front page]
Federal Court has ruled against a women-only app founder in a landmark transgender discrimination case, forcing her to pay compensation and sparking fears about women’s rights, writes Peta Credlin in the Sunday Telegraph today. [click to read more]
On Friday afternoon, as I sat down to work on this column, I honestly didn't know where to focus first.
Was the biggest issue the loss of integrity in our public life, after the Prime Minister ("my word is my bond") admitted saying 50 times he would not change any of the rules around investment properties but did it anyway?
Or was it the reality, confirmed in the budget papers, that under Labor’s record high immigration, Australia will hit 30 million people by 2030, despite nowhere near enough housing for those here now? Or was it the revelation that Labor has just brought in death duties by stealth?
Giggle v Tickle
As I debated all of this, the Federal Court handed down its decision in the long-running Giggle v Tickle case, where Sall Grover, a woman and founder of a women’s online networking app (called Giggle For Girls) was accused of discrimination against a transgender woman, the biologically male Roxanne Tickle, who sought to join the women-only app.
In a devastating blow for the rights of women and girls in this country, the court rejected scientific fact and declared that sex was more than biology (it isn't), and so Grover lost and now owes compensation to Tickle.
The fact that the taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission was a part of this legal action to deny all women our biological rights is appalling. The fact that Grover now has to rely on donations from ordinary people to defend rights that should not need defending says everything about the state of woke policy and activist courts in Australia.
But what’s perhaps most galling of all is that we are only in this position of denying chromosomal reality because Julia Gillard, ironically the first female prime minister, stripped the word woman
from the sex discrimination act. Before then, this case would never have got to court.
Anyone for any toilet
But what this latest decision does (and let’s hope it gets overturned when Sall Grover heads to the High Court), is that women’s sport, toilets, access to medical services, schools, clubs, domestic violence shelters, prisons ∼ the whole box and dice ∼ are open slather to any man who declares he is a woman.
Gender used to be what you called yourself, sex is what XY or XX made you. Not any more, thanks to this decision. And Gillard too, who changed the law just TWO DAYS before she was rolled by Kevin Rudd in June 2013 — how dare she lecture anyone on misogyny.
But on Friday afternoon, the bad news kept coming.
To add Labor insult to Labor injury, dropped out when they hoped no-one was watching was news from the Victorian government that not only was Daniel Andrews going to get a bronze statue in his honour but that it was already being made. You can't make this stuff up, can you?
In memory of stupidity
Given Victoria has a daily interest bill of $24 million, a $130,000 statue is a rounding-error but it’s the attempt to force Victorians to honour the man who locked them up for two years, ruined businesses, blew out debt, kowtowed to China, dialled up woke and made the once-proud state an international laughing stock that’s tipped people over the edge.
Am I the only one asking how the heck did we get here?
And, more to the point, how do we turn it around or, God forbid, is it even possible?
Never trust any leader again
If Albanese is allowed to get away with his massive budget lie, then we will never be able to trust any leader again. And if we can't ask questions before an election and base our decisions on what they tell us and hold them to it, then democracy is dead.
For all of Labor’s talk about intergenerational equity, the budget hits younger Australians the hardest. The PM says breaking his word on negative gearing is about them, but how can it be when they will never be able to use negatively gearing (as he has) to build up a nest egg but those doing it now can keep it up?
Buy a new-build property instead, Labor tells investors. But again, how’s that fair for young people given this is what they typically buy as a first home and, now, they're going to face even more competition as investors move in? Even Labor’s own budget papers admit that these changes will likely increase rents (as they did in the Keating era before he was forced to back down) and do little to increase the stock of available homes.
And then there’s the tax on aspiration (CGT changes) before they get you from the grave (the hit on trusts).
Liberal backbone
Thankfully, the Liberals have finally found a bit of policy backbone, and a bit of political mongrel.
Angus Taylor’s reply to Labor’s budget speech felt like the start of the Coalition getting its mojo back. He made the bold move to end bracket creep once and for all by indexing income tax thresholds, meaning low- and middle-income earners won't get punished for getting ahead. On migration, he went for the jugular and landed a bullseye if the hyperventilating from Labor MPs is any guide. The PM in particular was hysterical, declaring it was un-Australian to divide people between those who are migrant and those who are not.
That is not what Taylor did. He divided them between Australian citizen and non-citizen and said that, under the Coalition, only citizens would get access to the pension, the dole, the NDIS and other welfare.
Help for no commitment
Now what is unfair about that? Why should your taxes carry people who have made no formal commitment to this country? Right now, people can live here for decades, take the money and never pledge loyalty to Australia and its people. Taylor says not any more.
Add in the Treasurer’s announcement of a new Working Australians Tax Offset (a pollster-named handout if ever there was one) of $250 a year (or $4.80 a week) and rightly people are angry. In his budget speech, Jim Chalmers called his WATO meaningful
but what’s meaningful about 68 cents a day when the cost of everything has skyrocketed? It’s not meaningful, it’s insulting.
(And I might add, it’s still not even the $275 Albanese promised off their power bills).
Albo's right for a change
Anthony Albanese said that this budget is full of Labor values
and it is — the socialist values
that attack the fair-go, break trust, and hit middle Australia even harder
For the Liberals, there could be no better ground than this to fight Labor.
If the Coalition holds its nerve and campaigns every day like its life depends on it (because, frankly, it does) then this budget could well be the beginning of the end for the Albanese government.
But only if they work, day and night, to take the fight up to Labor. Labor is the target, not each other and not One Nation.
THUMBS UP
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: Her emotional, fighting speech in the Senate is a must-watch as she demanded culture
takes a back seat to better protect Aboriginal children.
THUMBS DOWN
Military witch hunt: Another $43m in Labor’s budget to investigate soldiers on top of the $350m that the Brereton process has cost taxpayers already.
"Promises and pie-crust," Jonathan Swift wrote in 1738, "are made to be broken." Vladimir Lenin, who liked the line, treated it as a slogan. Anthony Albanese treats it as a principle, Henry Ergas points out in the The Australian today. [click to read more]
The Prime Minister’s defence for repudiating assurances he had insistently reiterated ∼ indeed, for the 50th time
∼ is that Australia faces a crisis of intergenerational equity. But as Jonathan Pincus and I demonstrated on these pages, the claim is analytically incoherent and empirically threadbare. Nor, even if there were such inequities, would that justify the abrupt abandonment of repeatedly affirmed undertakings.
Serious governments seek democratic consent for contentious measures they had previously assured voters they would not introduce. John Howard did so with the GST: having ruled it out, he reversed openly, took it to the 1998 election, and proceeded only on the mandate he won there.
Greatest tax take in commonwealth history
The reason the Albanese government has not followed suit is neither urgency nor necessity. It is fear: fear that despite the opposition’s parlous state, voters would punish a government that has spent freely, governed carelessly and is now poised to extract the greatest tax take in commonwealth history.
The budget’s own numbers make the reality plain. Even accepting Treasury’s assumptions, the budget measures will increase housing supply over the next decade by less than one-third of 1%, while housing demand is likely to rise more than 15 times as quickly. This is not serious economic reform. It is a revenue grab wrapped in the language of moral urgency.
Corroding public trust
The inevitable result of that gap between political rhetoric and political practice is to corrode public trust. Trust, after all, is not a natural disposition; it is a social achievement, slowly accumulated and quickly squandered.
The word itself reveals the point. The Old English treow
lies behind both truth
and trust
; since at least the 15th century, to trust
someone has meant to believe that when he says what he will do, he speaks truthfully. Governments can sustain trust only by being truthful and trustworthy — and the institutional form through which those virtues manifest themselves is the promise.
A promise is what binds words to conduct, declarations to action, and electoral consent to subsequent government. Governments owe fidelity to their promises not merely for their own political advantage; they owe it because a healthy democratic life depends upon citizens being able to assume and assess fidelity to public commitments.
Governments need to mean what they say
The credibility of promises is also more broadly crucial to the viability of a free society, whose very essence is that people must order their lives amid continual uncertainty. Promises, including the promise that laws will not be changed capriciously, are what give individuals, families and businesses stable ground on which to plan. As Hannah Arendt wisely observed, they build islands of predictability
in the ocean of uncertainty
— islands that matter most to those with the fewest resources to absorb sudden policy shocks.
A young couple relying on an investment property to finance homeownership, a retiree dependent on hard-earned savings, a small business weighing expansion: all rely on governments meaning what they say.
But promises can only fulfil that stabilising role because they belong to the grammar of commitment: to the forms of obligation whose value lies in their relative insulation from changing convenience. A promise abandoned the moment it becomes burdensome is worth no more than the loyalty that melts away at the first sign of difficulty.
The preservation of credible public commitments is especially vital in Australia, where suspicion of the political process long predates contemporary disenchantment. Distrust of politicians was, as John Hirst emphasised, constitutive of the colonial polity itself. The men who entered politics were not thought fit to be trusted - and despite outstanding exceptions, many weren't.
Pioneering scholars of mass behaviour
The endless Australian debate over the accountability of parliamentarians reflected that suspicion. Both the Burkean trustee ∼ who is guided only by the light of his own judgment ∼ and the instructed delegate had their advocates. But it was the latter conception, entrenched by the emerging Labor Party, that ultimately prevailed. Labor parliamentarians were to be mere instruments: controlled by the ALP’s extra-parliamentary wing, bound by a pledge to uphold the platform and required to submit to caucus discipline on pain of political excommunication.
The Australian mass party thus emerged, from the beginning, as an institutional response to distrust: a mechanism designed less to cultivate confidence in politicians than to contain the risks they posed once elected. And Australian voters learned to scrutinise the distance between promise and performance with an intensity rare in comparable democracies. When that gap widened too far, confidence collapsed.
It is against this background that the events of the past three years must be seen. The Albanese government’s record on the central tax promises of two successive elections ∼ stage three, superannuation, and now negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount ∼ does not just constitute a litany of broken commitments; it constitutes the accelerated dismantling of an already tarnished public asset.
The predictable effect is an even more accelerated crisis of political representation. The four-decade arc from 1975’s 4% third-party vote to 2025’s 34% highlights its seemingly inexorable progression.
Withdrawing faithfulness
Those voters who have spurned the major parties are not ideological partisans of any third force; they are observant citizens who, having grasped what the parties no longer deliver, exercise the only sanction the system leaves them. Unable to meaningfully demand or expect faithfulness to a program from parties whose programs have ceased to bind, they withdraw their own faithfulness from those parties altogether.
The alternatives may not be especially attractive nor particularly unifying — but negative coalitions, aimed at punishing a detested foe, form more easily than positive ones precisely because they require only shared aversion rather than common aspiration. In these conditions, anti-system parties flourish, their capacity to aggregate voters a symptom not of democratic renewal but of democratic exhaustion.
To make things worse, governments confronted by a perpetually seething electorate are naturally tempted to govern through stealth and administrative manoeuvre, further impairing the trust whose disappearance produced the crisis of representation in the first place. And when a real, rather than confected, emergency arrives, they discover they can no longer summon the loyalties and willingness to sacrifice on which the survival of free societies ultimately depends.
Public language becomes tactical
No society can govern itself for long on the assumption that public language is merely tactical. Governments that repeatedly break faith with the electorate may secure temporary advantages. But they do so by undermining the confidence that policies announced today will survive long enough to shape behaviour tomorrow. As that confidence erodes, both the effectiveness of public policy and force of democratic authority unravel.
That is the deeper significance of the Albanese government’s conduct. It is not merely bad policy. It is the depletion of a civic inheritance that free societies squander far more easily than they rebuild. Yes, promises can be cracked like pie crusts. But in the end, public trust cracks with them. Lenin, sheltered by brutal authoritarianism, never had to learn that lesson. With the fabric of our democracy rapidly fraying, it is high time Anthony Albanese did.
No
guilded
lillies
here!
Scott Pape in Daily Telegraph
A
fter reading this column, my editor said: I'm confident this piece will generate the greatest amount of hate mail you've ever received.
Let's see if they're right … Do you know what the easiest thing I could have done this week was? Exactly what every other financial commentator has done: Lean into the outrage about the budget.
Instead, I'm going the other way. And I'm probably going to piss a lot of you off. Starting with Brian, who wrote to me after what I can only imagine was a solid session on the La-Z-Boy with a few reds:
Labor's tax grab? |
Scott, I am just so sick of these incompetent bastards. This budget is just another giant Labor tax grab. People in the top 10% of income earners pay more than half the taxes. Half! Now Albo wants to be a 47% silent partner in every small business in the country. Why would anyone bother? Young people saving for a deposit in index funds? Taxed.
Family trusts helping kids through university? Taxed. Small business owners who've spent decades building something? Taxed at rates that would make your eyes water.
New Zealand has no capital gains tax. Dubai has no capital gains tax. And our smartest young people are figuring that out real fast. You've got the platform, Scott. Let your followers know what’s really going on.
Bingo-bango, Brian! You've sure got a lot of very big feelings. Thankfully, I'm a father of four. I deal with big feelings before breakfast.
Let’s get into it.
Brian and I have a lot in common. I'm a high income earner and I pay a lot of tax. I come from a family of small business owners and I run one myself. And I bristle when I see politicians crowing about their economic credentials. The fact is, this is the highest-taxing Australian government since World War Two, and that spending is putting pressure on interest rates that every mortgage holder feels.
Yet what really worries me isn't the tax take. It’s that our outrage meter seems to be stuck at 11.
It feels like we're drifting towards America, where everything is viewed through a political lens and everyone is absolutely furious all the time.
Barefoot has given a scathing budget reality check.
And if we get angry enough we might just end up with Pauline as our PM, and the greatest economic insight she’s ever had was asking Why can't we just print more money?
(Seriously, look it up.)
Anyway, let’s deal with Brian’s three beefs. Plenty of young people have written to me in a panic about the changes to capital gains tax. Many were planning to use their share portfolio as a house deposit.
CGT not biggest problem |
My view? The CGT change is not their biggest problem. Let’s say a young investor puts $50k into an Aussie index fund. Based on historical returns, it grows to around $72k over five years. Under the new CGT rules, they'd pay roughly $900 more tax when they sell. And depending on future returns and inflation, they might actually come out ahead.
The real problem is the share market dropping 40% and their $72,000 deposit becoming $43,000. Then it takes a decade to recover, while rents keep rising and they're still at their parents' place eating their Cheerios. That’s why my rule has never changed: do not save for a house deposit in the share market.
Business partner! |
Brian’s 47 per cent silent partner
line was funny on social media the first 700 times. Now it’s just annoying. And it’s wrong. The small business CGT concession regime allows the vast majority of small business owners to halve or completely eliminate the capital gains tax they pay when they sell. It’s been there for years (though the thresholds need to be increased.)
The real risk is using the tax rate as a reason not to back yourself. Building something from nothing, employing people, serving your community. It’s a hard life. It’s also one of the most rewarding things a person can do. Don't let a meme talk you out of it.
The family trust |
Okay, so this one stings. You see, my kids have been nothing but a spectacular financial loss since the day they arrived. I was counting down the days until they turned 18, when I could finally start distributing trust income to them and claw something back. And then the bloody government snapped that door shut just as my eldest was getting close to useful.
Yet it actually makes sense. The system lets wealthy families with good accountants pay less tax than nurses and tradies. That doesn't pass the pub test.
Finally, if you spend enough time on social media (or listen to Brian) you may start to think that Australia is the highest-taxed nation on earth. Actually, we're in the middle of the pack, but with a standard of living in the top handful of countries on the planet. The cops don't shake us down (mostly). Our kids go to decent public schools (mostly). And if one of them gets sick, you don't need a GoFundMe page.
We'll be fine. After all, we're the wealthiest people in the country. Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. At the richest time in human history. Life is good, Brian, especially when you log off. Tread Your Own Path!
Financially abusing my brother |
Hi Scott: My brother just divorced his nasty wife. She had access to all his accounts, blew through a $180,000 inheritance, ran up $25,000 on his credit card, and towards the end wouldn't even let him touch his own debit card. He’s now living with me. He’s on a disability pension and can't work. I manage his accounts, have set-up his savings, and have tried to teach him the basics. He says it’s too hard. My sister accuses me of making it worse. Am I doing more harm than good?
Hello Caring Sister, your brother is lucky to have you.Your sister doesn't sound nice, but she does have a point. (How’s that for having it both ways?)
Now, before you throw me across the room, I know your intentions are completely different from his nasty ex-wife’s. You love your brother. She didn't. But, from where he’s standing, someone else is still controlling his money, his savings, and his decisions.
Now your bro doesn't need to become the next Warren Buffett. He just needs to learn to stand on his own two feet again, but that won't happen while you're transferring his surplus savings for him.
Think about how this plays out long term. Your brother grows increasingly dependent on you. You grow increasingly resentful … and neither of you need that.
My advice? Keep helping him with the basics. Set him up with one simple account, show him how to use his card, and then step back. Let him make small mistakes with small money. That’s how people learn. And then, when the settlement comes, he'll be ready to move out and start his new life. That’s good for him, and great for you.
No Show Albo |
Scott: As a man who lost the family home because of my gambling addiction (a shame I live with every day), and as a father whose teenage son 'plays' fantasy football and gets emails and ads from sports gambling companies, I was bitterly disappointed that the government tried to bury their inaction on gambling ads. Did you get a reply from the Prime Minister?
Hi Daniel: I wasn't expecting a reply, and old Albo didn't disappoint!
He’s the most powerful man in Australian politics. He had the backing from both sides of politics, and the people — nearly three-quarters of parents (myself included) reported being bothered by their kids being exposed to gambling ads.
He had the ability to stand up and say: We've got a huge gambling problem on our hands, and the beginning of that problem is that sport is a gateway to gambling: today for three in four kids it’s a normal part of sport. That’s crap. I'm the Prime Minister of this country and I've had enough. No more bloody ads.
But he didn't.
The lobbyists won, the kids lost — the odds never change.
Supemarket's shrinking patrons
Ruth Igielnik writes in The New York Times concern about rising prices has reached a fever pitch as Americans sit down to Memorial Day barbecues today (May 25) across the country. A majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents said that they had changed their purchases from grocery stores to stay within budget in the last several months, according to polling from CNN. Another 59 percent of Americans said they had cut back on extras and entertainment. More than three quarters of Americans, including 55 percent of Republicans, said President Trump's policies had increased the cost of living in their community. Survey after survey has found that Americans are feeling growing financial uncertainty. Nearly half of all voters gave the economy the lowest rating, "poor," in the latest New York Times/Siena poll, up 11 percentage points since January. And economic confidence has hit a four-year low, according to Gallup. Gas prices have continued to soar nationally, rising above $4.50 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. Nearly 80 percent of voters ∼ including a majority of Republicans ∼ say the Trump administration is responsible for this price hike, according to polling from Fox News. Large majorities also blamed oil companies, the war in Iran and government regulations. All in all, a solid majority of voters in the Fox poll, 57 percent, say that Mr. Trump's policies have hurt the country, up from 51 percent who said the same one year ago. MORE NUMBERS ABOUT AMERICA … ● 51 Percent of Americans Think the War in Iran Has Not Been Worthwhile. ● Only 21% of Americans Support the United States Initiating an Attack on Iran. ● 68% of Americans Say Trump Has the Wrong Priorities and ● 64% of Americans Disapprove of Trump's Tariffs.
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The tik-toks have it
At Milan Design Week, just following Watches and Wonders, Jaeger-LeCoultre staged The Perpetual Timekeeper, a sprawling two-floor exhibition dedicated not to wristwatches, but to Atmos clocks-the mysterious, glass-encased objects that have quietly occupied one of the most intriguing corners of the maison's history since 1928. ROBB Report.
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No women here!
A bill to create a Smithsonian American Women's History Museum on the National Mall was rejected by the US House of Representatives on Thursday, after it was amended to recognise only "biological" females, the New York Times reports. The bill designated a location for the long-awaited museum, which has had bipartisan support. But after Republicans amended the bill, including its definition of women, Democrats sank it in a vote of 216 to 204. Some said that any provision specifying the achievements of "biological women" threatened to exclude transgender women and girls from the institution's programming.
The Murrurundi Times is owned, compiled and written by Des Dugan. Email