Joseph Daoud has paid $17,500 for billboard and digital terminal messages at the airport to attack the government’s proposed capital gains tax changes, putting the fight over the budget back in front of travellers as Parliament begins a new sitting week. The message on the ad is blunt: “Investing in shares? Saving a deposit? Building a business? Your ambition will be taxed under proposed CGT changes,”.
Daoud said the campaign would run throughout the Parliamentary sitting week, a period when the government is trying to better explain why it wants to extend the changes beyond housing and into share investing and business sales. He said the effort follows conversations with “dozens of small business owners,” calls from first home buyers and roundtables with the Shadow Treasurer, and argued that ambitious Australians are not being heard.
“I spent $17,500 on these billboards because I know for a fact that this budget is going to disable hope for all young Australians, anyone looking to start a business, anyone who invests in shares or other markets or anyone that is looking to purchase their first home,” Daoud said. He also said: “So if Canberra wants to live in its own bubble and act like we don’t exist, I’m going to make sure they see each and every one of us.”
The backlash has been building since the weekend, with the start-up and small business sector turning against the plan to scrap the current 50 per cent discount on capital gains tax and move to a discount based purely on inflation. The criticism has not been limited to entrepreneurs. Young share investors have also argued that the change reaches far beyond property and would affect the way ordinary Australians save and build wealth.
That pressure sharpened further on Sunday when UNSW economist Richard Holden released analysis saying higher performing businesses would effectively be punished when they are sold. Under a typical investment scenario of historic returns of about 9 per cent and inflation at the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2.5 per cent target, share investors could face paying nearly double the rate of tax on gains.
Holden said: “This is the worst possible plan for a country in need of more jobs, and more economic growth.” He added: “It’s a productivity tax in the middle of a productivity crisis. Unfortunately, that is the perverse logic of a productivity tax, they punish high productivity businesses for doing well, growing fast, and creating more jobs.”
One former Liberal Party treasurer was even more direct, saying: “The young will have a lifetime of these higher taxes. They will never have the same opportunities their parents had – or indeed that members of the Albanese cabinet had – to save, invest and keep a decent share of the proceeds,”
The dispute now sits at the intersection of tax policy and political messaging. The government says the reform is aimed at changing how gains are taxed, but its opponents are treating the proposal as a broader hit to ambition, investment and business growth. With Parliament back in session and the campaign moving onto airport screens, the argument is no longer confined to treasury papers and press releases; it is now being fought in public, where the stakes are easier to see.
