Unions back tax overhaul to benefit younger Australians      
June 16, 2026 ACTU.
Australian Unions are urging the Federal Parliament to pass urgent reforms to start unwinding tax laws that have kept owning a home out of reach for an entire generation of younger Australians.

The changes to capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing are essential to start reversing a sharp decline in home ownership rates, especially among 25–34-year-olds.

The tax changes will overhaul unfair tax measures that contributed to a 10-percentage point decline in home ownership rates nationally since 1966, the ACTU told a Senate Inquiry today.

The home ownership collapse, particularly among younger Australians, was caused by a decline in property affordability driven by overly generous tax concessions that the new tax laws will start to wind back.

Younger workers need the tax bills to pass to have more chance of stepping onto the housing ladder to have a shot at building their own financial security.

Housing must be made more affordable, particularly for young people who wait half a decade to save a deposit, only to find prices have risen even further.

The current capital gains tax discount and negative gearing have kept home ownership out of reach for an entire generation and funneled the benefits to the wealthiest and must be made fairer.

In 2019-2020, 75% of the total benefit of the CGT discount was captured by the top 10% of taxpayers.  In 2022-23, the top 1% of taxpayers received 54% of all capital gains income, averaging gains of $850, 690. By contrast, only 2% of 18–29-year-olds get any benefit at all from the current 50% CGT discount.

Australian Unions also support cost-of-living relief through the Working Australian Tax Offset, the $1,000 instant tax deduction, ongoing income tax cuts and changes to discretionary trusts that have protected the earnings of wealthy Australians and ensured the top 10% of families benefit from a system that is inaccessible to most working people.

Quotes attributable to ACTU Assistant Secretary, Joseph Mitchell:

“These tax bills are positive reforms to make work respected, not penalised and to treat housing as a place to live, not a tax-advantaged vehicle for speculative gain.

“Young people shouldn’t need to gamble on crypto just to be able to afford a home deposit, as some commentators claim.

“We can do better and these reforms are a step towards giving working Australians a fairer shot at home ownership.

“Until the tax system stops rewarding wealth more than work, younger households will be left with a fraction of the assets of older generations while being saddled with more debt from higher property loans.

“These reforms also confront a basic injustice that has meant people who work for a living have carried a heavier burden than those who make their money through capital gains, tax concessions and legal structures designed to minimise tax.

“That’s not fair for younger Australians who need the tax system to stop contributing to inflated house prices and rewarding speculation over productive investment.

“Combined with tax cuts that hand back money to low and middle-income Australians, these tax reforms are a critical first step towards restoring fairness to the tax system.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/snowy-20-union-deal-set-to-trigger-1-t...
Australians were shocked when the budget triggered a big fall in dwelling prices, a credit squeeze and employment cut backs.

But another big shock is on the pre 2028 election horizon – the NSW and Victorian Snowy 2.0 linked renewables scheme. The disaster incorporates crazy time targets, money guarantee rorts and now the latest addition, the incorporation of “CFMEU rules” into the most difficult engineering project Australia has attempted.

The addition of the CFMEU locks in a $1 trillion network charge bill that will hit all power users. To escape the looming exorbitant network charges Australians who invested large sums in roof top solar and batteries will need to consider diesel generating back up even though that will increase the burden on everyone else.

Liberals leader Angus Taylor should and could take advantage of the looming network price crisis, but because as a former Energy Minister, he was involved in the early stages of the scheme, he has hesitated.

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are in an ideal position to be the winners. Exposing the government’s biggest secret will require relentless parliamentary questioning.

Anthony Albanese now understands the weakness of Jim Chalmers. The revelation of the mistakes in the base Snowy 2.0 hydro battery will expose the scandals in the rest of the scheme and uncover the weaknesses of his Energy Minster Chris Bowen.

But now that $40bn cost is set to explode because the project developers have signed an agreement with the CFMEU and linked unions to embrace very similar provisions to those planned for the Victorian Suburban Rail Link.

Not only are there huge pay rises but effectively the CFMEU people will be joint managers of one of the most complex tunnelling projects ever attempted in Australia. Governance goes out the window.

Snowy 2.0 is a giant, pumped-hydro battery. Its electricity will come from as far away as western Victoria, eastern South Australia, and western NSW.

To transmit the electricity over these huge distances, around 2000 towers — often 60 to 70 metres high or almost the height of the Sydney Harbour Bridge pylons — must be erected on Australia’s prime farming land. That power then drives water up to a giant dam in the “high country”.

When required, the water falls through a tunnel system to a lower dam. A huge. 17km tunnel is being drilled. The drill from the top got stuck and a new drill has been brought in to drill from the bottom with the aim of connecting the two tunnels. It is high risk engineering.

Sadly, the wonderful engineering talent established in the original Snowy scheme has been scattered around the world, increasing the risk. The main Snowy 2.0 contractor, Italian based Webuild, started with a fixed priced contract but when losses exploded WeBuild was awarded a cost-plus contract approved by Chris Bowen.

The combination of a cost plus contract and CFMEU wanting to show its authority is scary for the nation because it will flow into the total project which is much larger than the actual Snowy 2.0 battery.

The scheme’s wind and solar power generation farms are spread over widespread regions. When the power leaves the tunnel generators it must be transmitted to Sydney and Melbourne. It was always going to be high cost but those costs will now explode.

Measured over 35 years, the financing cost will be more than double construction costs because the Australian government undertook a series of secret very generous guaranteed return contracts with private developers and investors. This means that the developers have limited incentive to keep costs down.

The government will fight to keep these guaranteed return contracts secret because some involve rorts guaranteeing 10 per cent plus investment returns.  The precedents created via union management and the locked in returns will take the total outlay for the project past $1 trillion – greater than the national debt.



Turnbull said it would cost $2 billion.
It will be 500 + times that

thegreatdivide wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2026 at 12:54pm:



Always blaming others. You do realise Snowy 2.0 has their own engineers etc that said it could be done, at a price? Blaming politics on engineering faults, is not the way to go.

Has there ever been a more shambolic infrastructure project than the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro battery? That was reconfirmed last week in a damning performance audit by the federal Auditor-General that found “significant deficiencies in project governance arrangements have impacted value for money”.

The 11-month investigation concluded that Snowy Hydro’s project management had been only “partly effective”. Even that seems generous: there are few findings of appropriate, let alone good, management. Indisputably, the project has been ineffectively managed since its launch nine years ago.

The audit’s 98 pages are replete with management deficiencies. To quote just a few: “not effectively holding the contractors to account; not having access to quality data that would allow appropriate monitoring of the project; no agreed baseline schedule; the incentive framework (for the new contract) not working as intended; a reliable cost forecasting system is still not developed; risk management arrangements are still being established”.

...


Snowy 2.0 is not only a financial and project management disaster but also an environmental disaster. Vast areas of pristine Kosciuszko National Park have been destroyed across 35km, with massive earthworks, huge spoil dumps, roads and tracks, transmission lines and easements, introduced weeds, depressed water tables, reduced stream flows and forthcoming pest fish transfers.

For years, industry experts have been urging the government not to rely solely on Snowy Hydro’s repeatedly flawed advice and impossibly optimistic estimates.

Will this latest audit finally prompt a rigorous independent expert review, so the least-worst option can be determined? If not, Snowy 2.0 will continue down the shambolic path of the past nine years – at the cost of taxpayers, electricity consumers and the Kosciuszko environment.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/how-snowy-20s-latest-audit-confirms-...