Labor’s budget is a tax on ambition, a tax on aspiration, and a tax on success. That’s the reality—and it has gone down like a lead balloon in the Australian community, across all demographics, from young people to retirees. It has gone down like a lead balloon, and the Labor government is now in damage control.
They’re trying to pare back various elements of the increase in capital gains tax, attempting to play favourites, but they’re only digging a deeper hole. That’s the reality. Labor’s budget has gone down like a lead balloon in the Australian community.
Senator Hume, in her question to the government, raised a legitimate issue. The government says it will provide carve-outs for start-ups—businesses that are innovative. But what business isn’t innovative? What business, in order to survive today, isn’t using innovation to survive and prosper?
As Senator Hume said, from the local café—and I want to give a shout-out to my friend Nick, who just sold his café in my local area—he had to struggle every single day to be innovative so his business could prosper, providing employment and excellent service each day. He had to be innovative.
And as Senator Hume also noted, your local hairdresser is innovative. My friend Khalid, my barber—who was proudly made an Australian citizen just last week—is a wonderful man with his family. He came to this country and built a business that now employs eight people and owns its own premises. He has to be innovative every single day.
Yet Labor is now setting up this false construct—that some businesses are innovative and others are not—effectively picking and choosing between different Australian businesses. It’s not right.
Then Senator Cash made an important point: it’s also a question of timing. You might be innovative when you start a business, but what about when you sell it 20 years later?
I want to read to you a quote from the founder of SEEK. SEEK is a company established in 1997 by half a dozen people. It is now the go-to platform for people looking for jobs. It may have been innovative in 1997, but what about in 2026, when it has a market capitalisation north of $4 billion and around 3,000 employees, including across Asia? Are they still considered innovative? They were certainly innovative then.
This is what one of the founders of SEEK, Mr Paul Bassat, says in relation to the Labor government’s changes to capital gains tax:
“The government is committing a big own goal that will have a significant impact on a critical sector of the economy. I’m in a range of different WhatsApp groups with Australian founders, and the overall mood is one of great disappointment and frustration.”
That is, great disappointment and frustration among the people who are actually setting up new businesses—creating wealth, prosperity and employment.
Mr Bassat goes on to say:
“We don’t want own goals either in the World Cup or in our economy.”
The government is committing a big own goal that will have a significant impact on a critical sector of the economy.
We don’t want the next generation of founders to go to Singapore or Canada to set up their companies. We want them to stay in Australia and create wealth and prosperity for the Australian people.
