By Elizabeth Pike and Greg Brown
One of Anthony Albanese’s staunchest critics, fund manager Geoff Wilson, has drafted Labor an alternative chapter on tax for its 2026 policy platform, calling for greater capital gains tax concessions and a rethink of the party’s economic strategy.
The founder and chairman of Wilson Asset Management penned “How to build an economy that works for all Australians” in response to the first tranche of Labor’s draft platform – “An Economy that Works for Everyone” – as delegates prepare to vote on the policy at the party’s 50th national conference in Adelaide on Thursday.
The conference will decide the next three years of ALP policy, and Mr Wilson’s paper represents a final bid to shift the dial with party apparatchiks.
In the opening foreword of his mock chapter, obtained by The Australian, Mr Wilson spelled out how the government’s changes to capital gains tax would send the economy backwards.
The fund manager has fiercely contested the budget changes, namely the decision to replace the 50 per cent CGT discount with cost base indexation and a minimum 30 per cent tax rate across all asset classes.
In his paper he urged the government to save the Treasury Laws Amendment Act by extending the CGT carve-out for start-ups and small businesses to all productive enterprises.
Failing this, he said parliament should repeal the legislation.
“At first glance (the reforms are) a housing measure, but as the details are revealed, it is evident that the new legislation reaches far beyond housing,” Mr Wilson wrote.
“It affects Australia’s 2.7 million active businesses, the more than five million Australians they employ and the 7.7 million Australians who own shares directly. “The new CGT legislation does not commence until 1 July 2027. No revenue has been raised and no investor has been taxed under it. The final arrangements must return to the parliament as an amending bill before then.
“An economy that works for everyone must reward the people who build it. Taxing the return on productive risk more heavily than any other return in the economy is illogical and self-defeating.”
Alongside his two key recommendations on the CGT carve-out, Mr Wilson – a distant cousin of opposition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson – said Labor should reconsider its 30 per cent tax on discretionary trusts, which is yet to pass parliament.
The 34-page document also outlines “how investors will respond” to the changes, international comparisons, and a list of “minimum repairs” that should be made to the budget reforms.
The Prime Minister previously claimed Mr Wilson had opposed “everything my government has done”, after the fund manager called the budget an “intergenerational betrayal”.
Aside from making the CGT concession for start-ups with a turnover of up to $10m, Labor has largely stuck by its reforms.
And the ALP’s 2026 draft policy platform has explicitly locked in the budget tax changes, from negative gearing to indexed CGT and the trust tax.
A previous commitment to give the Australian people a “fairer return” for their natural resources now specifies this will be achieved through “appropriate taxation arrangements” – fanning prospects of a new gas levy.
Labor’s longstanding promise to create an economy for the “people” has also been bolstered with a new pledge to “responsible economic management”.
Mr Wilson warned Labor of the “price Australia will pay” for its existing budget reforms if productive capital is not prioritised before the legislation comes into effect next year.
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