Whom thinks Jim Chalmers is the worst Federal Treasurer of all time?

Whom would. I would too.

Let's have a look at Division 296:

https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-09/c2023-443986-em.pdf

Whilst Australians continue to be concerned about gender identity politics and equality of outcome, the proposal (Which will surely go ahead) centers around:

1. Not only does it tax unrealised gains, but when an asset is eventually sold and the gain realised, the cost base is not increased for the unrealised tax already paid. The asset is taxed twice, with no credit given to the first tax.

2. On the taxing of unrealised gains, there is no CGT discount for assets held for more than 12 months.
So far, Division 296 is the only new revenue raising plan Chalmers has for 2026. He is counting on the tax to raise $40 billion over the next decade. That assumption is based upon people with more than $3m in their super, of which 80% are over 60. They simply won't sit back and write a cheque to the ATO every year as Chalmers expects, as they're already in pension phase.

He is sorely mistaken. More annoyingly, smug about it. One only has to look at what happened in Norway under the threat of taxing unrealised gains. The wealth fled.

A bit more here:

https://www.taxinstitute.com.au/insights/articles/2025/div-296-poor-design

And a quote from that article:

The Tax Institute’s Head of Tax & Legal, Julie Abdalla, FTI, said, “We absolutely support changes that make our tax system more equitable. No one is arguing against high wealth individuals paying their fair share. We are concerned that Treasury is introducing a legal precedent that says Australians can be taxed on money they do not have and may never have. There’s nothing equitable about that.”
“It’s unconscionable that Treasury is pushing this policy through with blatant disregard for the legal and equitable concerns raised by stakeholders. And it is particularly dishonest and disappointing to hear the Treasurer publicly state that no better solutions have been proffered, when many highly intelligent people and superannuation experts have presented various reasonable and workable alternatives.”

Thoughts?

 

Both Treasury and the ATO have moved aggressively to the left as ever more indoctrinated graduates enter public service employment. Politicians rarely know much about economics and are dependent on the public service "experts".

There is no longer any hope, Marxism controls the institutions and is dug in like ticks on a dog.

 

“Chalmers grew up in Logan City in Brisbane's south.[3] He attended Catholic schools before going on to Griffith University, where he completed the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Commerce and attained a First Class honours degree in public policy.[4][5] He went on to complete a PhD in political science at the Australian National University, writing his doctoral thesis on the prime ministership of Paul Keating,[1][2] titled "Brawler statesman: Paul Keating and prime ministerial leadership in Australia”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Chalmers#:~:text=He%20went%20on%20to%20complete,prime%20ministerial%20leadership%20in%20Australia%22.

A career politician with a commerce AND arts degree. Almost qualified enough to run a national economy.

 

On the other side of the coin, he's made the ONLY worthwhile change to try and fix the construction industry by refunding TAFE and giving a $14,000 bonus to apprentices who complete their indenture.
Compare that to the ridiculous LNP Qld solution of funding (up to $1m) first home buyers who can come up with $20,000 and share 30% equity in the property with the government...

 

They've been angling for this for a while
The Labor Party Sucks Thread | FerrariChat

 

Fixed

 

The way to fix the construction industry is to break the CFMEU. Wake up, will you?

 

Yep. I'm about to put up a 2m boundary fence to keep them all out. Or maybe a hedge?

 

Logan City. Enough said

 

No politician has done anything to fix the contraction industry. Nor have they proposed anything. You could start by deregistering the CFMEU and opening a Royal Commission into their conduct, and relation to the incumbent government. You could also include bribery, thuggery and wastage.

 

Nowhere near where I live. Where do you work, again?

 

I don’t live where I work!

 

Ordinary residential construction has nothing to do with CFMEU. The large apartment blocks where they might have a presence are way less than 30% of housing construction in Australia.
https://australianpropertyupdate.com.au/apu/weak-home-approvals-and-apartment-costs-doom-housing-targets

 

See reply to Pat re CFMEU.
You must have missed the relevant budget commitments: https://sacsa.org.au/news/federal-budget-2025-26-breakdown/

 

BS. If the CFMEU has manipulated the market to increase labour and supply chain costs, it affects everything

 

I feel your pain - the company that bought my practice moved it further away, so now my commute has gone from 12 minutes to 18 minutes

 

lol

 

From that article:

New dwelling approvals data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the nation continues to fall spectacularly short of the number of homes it needs to build to keep up with population growth, let alone meet the Federal government’s ambitious housing targets.

The data come as new figures from building consultancy Urbis show the cost of new apartments blew out by an astonishing 24% in the last quarter of 2024 to a new record.

The explosion in apartment selling prices is concerning, as analysts say the only way Australia can meet its housing targets is by building more apartments and encouraging greater density in our capital cities.


Why would a builder work with smaller clients directly, when they can earn 50% more as a subcontractor on some rubbish state funded project? The answer is you would, if your wages could match, or exceed what you'd get as a subby. Workers will go where the money is. That's what's driving up the costs of construction with builders.

Furthermore, if you have a vacant block of land in Victoria, by the time an average house appears on that subdivision, 43% of the cost of the build goes in government taxes and permits. Throw the increased cost of the build itself, and people wonder why housing here is so expensive in relation to wages.

The root cause of such issues in Australia apart from the socialist driven red tape and bureaucracy, is immigration. But that's another story, except that we have it to artificially boost the Federal Governments Ponzi scheme.

You've spent time in Hong Kong. How well do you think the CFMEU would work in Hong Kong? And furthermore, do you know how long it takes to secure a building permit in Hong Kong?

 

You hit the nail on the head:

Budget commitments

I read the budget in detail.

1. Where is the money coming from to fund these "commitments"? I'll give you a hint. The federal Government doesn't have the money to fund those "commitments" presently.

2. Is it your position the Federal Government will therefore fund those commitments from Division 296, since this is the only revenue raising proposal Mr. Chalmers has proposed for the entire calendar year 2026?

You cannot tax your way out of a recession.

 

Well just drive like Moretti did and make it 8 minutes.

 

It has nothing to do with single home or small unit developments; and even on the big projects the problem is NOT supply chain - it is the lack of TRADESMEN. Number of registered builders in Qld increased by 0.5% between 2020 and 2024...

 

poor petal!

 

The highlighted section hits the nail on the head - there is a HUGE shortfall in tradesmen and they can pick and choose the highest paying/lowest risk jobs.
HK and Aus are just too different on every metric to compare...

 

No and you can't build houses without tradesmen... spending housing on training badly-needed tradesmen is way more useful than upping the defence budget or more 'free' childcare or Olympic stadiums!
BTW, we actually don't have a 'shortage' of houses in Australia - the underutilisation in many places is enormous. So many large family homes occupied by a single person; or sitting empty for lots of different reasons.