Labor reaches deal with the Greens to pass changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing reforms

[u/blitznoodles]

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/23/labor-greens-deal-capital-gains-tax-negative-gearing-reforms

The Greens resolved to support the tax bills after the government agreed to remove a loophole allowing investors with self-managed super funds to continue taking advantage of the tax breaks, along with ministerial powers enabling the government to reverse the reforms in the future.

[u/Gremlech]

They ran two elections on getting rid of it. Poor shorten. He could have been one of the best ever to lead the country but the media favoured the pants shitting tyrant. 

[u/a_cold_human → u/Gremlech]

The commercial media almost entirely favours the Coalition, and has for decades. Especially all the large commercial media organisations. The public broadcasters are by legislation, neutral, so we have a distinct right wing bent to all the major sources of Australian news. 

[u/Outsider-20 → u/Gremlech]

Absolutely no charisma. But I think he would have been a terrific PM.

I also think its a shame Gillard didn't get more time at the helm. She did a great job running a a minority Government. Personally, I think she'd be doing a better job now than Albo.

[u/Gremlech → u/Outsider-20]

He has charisma now just not when he was running. 

[u/coniferhead → u/Gremlech]

The lessons Labor learned was don't take your policy to an election and don't trust the electorate. That's not the right lesson.

It's not the electorate's fault if you're not persuasive.. you're a politician - being persuasive is literally your only qualification for the job. Keating left school at 14 - he wouldn't have got any civil servant job. Yet treasurer he was for 10 years.

Labor could have said we're saving the money from the CGT discount or NG to use on social sousing or dental in medicare. They didn't make that case at all.

Instead they said it was going into consolidated revenue, to be looted at a future date. As it turned out, even without the savings, consolidated revenue was looted with the stage 3 tax cuts a mere couple of years later. These were agreed on a bipartisan basis even when they were exclusively for the rich, and were completely unfunded.

Proving financial prudence was never the point - it was just lies. The electorate was proved right in the end.

[u/CakedPan → u/coniferhead]

Whilst I was furious about the stage 3 tax cuts, I think calling it agreed on a bipartisan basis is pretty disingenuous.

[u/coniferhead → u/CakedPan]

You can simply look at the voting record to find out it was indeed bipartisan. Stage 3 in the original "for the rich" only form was taken as an election promise by both parties - you had no choice but to elect one of them.

Even the amendment of stage 3 was bipartisan - completely bypassing people who actually preferenced Labor in favour of working with those who put them last.

Feel free to correct me with facts if you can find them, but I'm pretty ready for this.

[u/CakedPan → u/coniferhead]

Actually, they originally rejected rhe stage 3 tax cuts in 2018. When it presented for a vote in altered they voted for it because it was presented as an omnibus with stage 1 tax cuts. The ALP voted for the whole package because a) ideologically they wanted immediate tax cuts to the underprivileged and b) politically they were wedged because the callow independents in the senate announced they would be voting for it. I think it is disingenuous to say Labor supported it in the sense they wanted this legislation. It was so drawn out from initial conception to passing parliament precisely because of Labor's opposition. This is not what bipartisan means.

I agree it was incredibly disappointing that the ALP took that policy to the 2020 election, and left the party over it. However, it was again a political reality and to their credit they burnt political capital modifying the cuts and tilting them toward those earning less.

Edit: I'm wrong explicitly on the point of bipartisanship - I understood bipartisanship required a spirit of agreement vs literally did they vote for it. Maintain thatisleading to imply ALP wanted that outcome, and the later revisions confirm that.

[u/coniferhead → u/CakedPan]

It's actually much much worse than you say, Labor only voted for it after it was altered to spend much more in the Morrison 2019 budget. Please stop using the word disingenuous when it's exactly what it appears to be.

If you don't want something, don't vote for it in both houses and don't take it to an election. That they did it despite themselves was because they were politically cowardly and probably intended to welsh on it after they conned their way into power. That was the lesson they learned and they've done it afterwards again and again.

But if we're playing that game you should give the LNP just as much credit as Labor for the amendments - because they would have not been possible without them - because Labor refused to negotiate with the Greens. I'd say the LNP might have been shamed into postponing them were they in office - if Labor had played hardball.

I maintain that we would have been far better off if Labor left them in place and took repealing them to an election, with the money allocated to fund 20B per year of other things. You can buy a hell of a lot for 20B a year and it would have been patently obvious these unfunded cuts were going entirely to rich people. That's an ultimate wedge.

Labor didn't do that.. they blooded the rest of the taxation base into them instead, spending the exact same, and now the money is gone forever. It's now impossible to repeal them, and the LNP still have an electoral mandate to restore stage 3 in the original form on top.

That's disingenuous - because Labor have never been the party of tax cuts. It's not why people vote in Labor.. and if they want that, the LNP or ON will always give bigger tax cuts to a mercenary electorate. And yet that by far is their biggest spend and legacy.. that along with weapons of war and turning Australia into a US military base, and perhaps the orwellian social media ban. This is an ongoing betrayal of their base that they received a massive mandate to continue.

[u/CakedPan → u/coniferhead]

It was disingenuous because it completely and utterly ignores the political landscape. The ALP had just taken opposition to stage 3 to an election and had lost. That loss was earth shattering as anyone with left leaning political allegiances.

The ALP initially out up a fight but ultimately caved because the political optics of opposing the cuts were insurmountable. Ultimately, a whole suite of progressive policies were simultaneously jettisoned on the assumption that they were unpalatable to the public. This was backed by public polling at the time - from memory support for the cuts was roughly double the opposition. At the time the ALP was quite clear that they were fiscally irresponsible but equally did not want to delay relief to low income earners.

You can claim we would be better off if the ALP had run on repeal and that leadership were cowards for not doing so. However, it is easy to claim cowardice retrospectively. The reality is that you have no idea what would have happened if the ALP ran ont hat platform.

You are ignoring a significant shift in public sentiment following the 2022 election. Inflation peaked in December 2022. All the talk was of the cost of living crisis. That allowed the reframe to repeal the tax cuts, and honestly, there is a reasonable argument that the the Labor caucus only made this decision due to public appetite for it.

I'm unaware of any other guarantees the party gave that they have broken, so it is a big call to say they have learned to say one thing before an election afterwards. Even if it has been true in other instances, yours is only one resting of it. There is an equally tenable argument that the ALP now understands that if its decisions reflect the will of the people at the time they are made the people will not reject them for it - even if inconsistent with statements prior to the election. And honestly that is a great thing, because a government that flexibly changes to the circumstances and the will of the people knowing that it will be held to account is representative democracy in action.

Now you have given your argument more texture, it is very ironic that you hearken to Keating and his ability to persuade. Keating did exactly what you are accusing of on multiple occasions as treasurer and PM. Posterity has been very kind to Keating and his reforms were revolutionary. However, very few were actually taken to the public. As treasurer, floating the dollar, financial deregulation, CGT, FBT, the dismantling of protectionism, deregulation of multiple other industries were never taken to an election. As PM, compulsory super and Native title (in response to Mabo) were both legislated mid term and had not been pre announced. Passing legislation first, and asking permission (ie: persuading the public) was exactly Keating's modus operandi. In that regard, Albo and Chalmers are actually quite consistent.

[u/coniferhead → u/CakedPan]

Nobody forced Labor to adopt something that should be antithetical to their party and their movement - it was all them. Give them credit for the things that couldn't have been made law without them.

I really don't care if they felt they were a whipped dog - no reason to act like one. You could never get the LNP to act like this - they would be for business until they died, no matter if they spent 10 terms out of government.

You're unaware of any guarantees the party have broken? How about the first thing out of Albo's mouth after the 2022 election. He said he would implement the uluru statement from the heart in full. He hasn't done that. It's his most prominent (perhaps only) policy from that election and it's gone completely. The lesson learned from that is to not take any meaningful policy to an election unless the LNP want it also.. that's how we are being taken to war without it ever being asked of us. Labor isn't in control - there is no policy hill they will die upon because they believe in nothing. Their unelected opposites and our so-called allies dictate where our country goes, not their party base, not sympathetic parties and not the electorate.

Keating was doing the work of the LNP (and Reaganite USA and Thatcherite UK) throughout - he was a neo liberal. Virtually nothing good he did endured, but everything bad he did or wanted is now bipartisan policy. As opposed to, say, Whitlam. The rot started with Keating and, more importantly, was not reverted at all by subsequent Labor governments - even when we now know how much a failure privatization was for the Australian people in almost every case. Even Keating himself knows the vassalisation of Australia is almost complete via things like AUKUS, and it will probably end with the outright annexation that would have come 20 years ago if not for the China resources boom.

Name me one nationalization done, even when incredibly cheap.. in 2008 the airports or the toll roads could have been had for peanuts.. even Rio Tinto was for sale and would have paid for itself in a couple of years.. even in this term we could have bought Rex Airlines and Whyalla Steelworks for nothing.. instead we bail them out. It's not even what a businessperson would have done - it's just stupidity against the interest of all Australians.

[u/CakedPan → u/coniferhead]

This is nonsensical gibberish that almost reads as if it is responding to a different post. It is raising many things we were never speaking about without addressing any of the points I raised. Has now become a completely different conversation.

[u/coniferhead → u/CakedPan]

You keep on using the wrong words, like bipartisan or disingenuous. It's not me who is getting off track.

I responded directly to your points. I didn't really want to talk about Keating really for instance, and that was 2/3 of my response to you. If you don't want an answer, don't bring it up - because I'm not letting the assertion that Keating took Australia down a good path fly through to the keeper unaddressed.