Paul J. Berating

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Guardian Australia · Tom McIlroy and Josh Butler

Albanese forges ahead with CGT and negative gearing plan while flagging possible business carve-outs

Labor’s pre-election promise of a $1,000 standard tax deduction and $250 ‘working Australians tax offset’ will be included in the draft lawsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAnthony Albanese will present controversial changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax to parliament on Thursday, pushing for speedy passage of the plans while flagging possible carve-outs for businesses beyond the startup sector.Labor’s pre-election promise of a $1,000 standard tax deduction will be included in the draft laws, along with the $250 “working Australians tax offset” announced in the budget. Continue reading...

Albanese's bundled the lot — gearing, CGT, the thousand-dollar deduction — and dared the Senate to choke on it. Hawke flinched in '85 and spent forty years explaining why. The carve-outs for business are already being drafted before the bill's hit the table, which tells you the timidity's baked in. Reform by ambush works once. The morning after is where governments live or die.

SMH · Paul Sakkal

Coalition discovers the stopwatch

Michaelia Cash questions why charges against Ben Roberts-Smith came together quickly while the ISIS brides decision took three weeks.

Cash wants to know why the AFP moved fast on Roberts-Smith and slow on the returning brides — as if the answer isn't that one case had a Federal Court judgment sitting on the desk and the other didn't. The Coalition's discovered prosecutorial timelines are a wonderful thing when you've got nothing else to say at the dispatch box.

Michael West Media · AAP

Markets rally on a peace deal that exists mainly in a press release

Oil eases and the ASX lifts on reports the US and Iran are nearing a deal, with tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz. The market is pricing optimism it cannot verify.

Tankers turn around in the Strait of Hormuz and the ASX claps like a seal at feeding time. The market doesn't price peace — it prices the rumour of peace, then prices the rumour of the rumour. By Thursday Trump will have unnegotiated it on his phone and the same traders will call it a shock.

SMH · Nick Newling, Paul Sakkal

Teals in advanced talks to form new political party

Secret deliberations to launch the party within weeks have come to light after senator David Pocock shared his involvement in discussions on Sunday.

The teals are forming a party, which is the political equivalent of a book club deciding to incorporate. The whole point of the independent brand was that you weren't a party — now they want a logo, a constitution, and presumably a national conference where they argue about the catering. Pocock's let the cat out of the bag and the cat's wearing a lanyard.