Anthony Albanese visibly emotional after defending Labor’s capital gains tax and negative gearing changes

Key Takeaways

• A visibly emotional Anthony Albanese has launched an impassioned defence of Labor’s proposed changes to negative gearing, the capital gains tax discount and family trusts, saying he will “not allow Australia to become a country where aspiration is only for some”.
• The prime minister has faced sustained criticism to the reforms, which include limiting negative gearing to new-builds while grandfathering existing properties, changing how CGT is calculated and imposing a new 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts.
• Guardian Australia has reported some of his own MPs are wary scare campaigns could “get out of hand” unless Albanese and the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, begin providing a clearer explanation of the tax changes.
• At Victorian Labor’s state conference on Saturday, Albanese said the reforms were “the right thing to do, not the easy thing” and would rebalance the housing market toward first home buyers instead of property investors.
• He said every Saturday, young people were “missing out” at auctions because they were bidding against investors who had the “Australian taxpayer on their side”.