The negative gearing/capital gains tax changes are really simple and benefit regular people
The media (owned by rich people) are currently going "WOW? SO CONFUSING! BAD LABOR BUDGET BAD! MASSIVE TAX HIKES!" but what actually is happening?
Negative gearing ISN'T being abolished. Literally everyone who already benefited from it on their investment portfolios continues to have it. Anyone complaining and saying they're going to raise the rent because it's made things less profitable for them is lying and a scumbag.
The change is going forward any ADDITIONAL properties an investor wants to get tax breaks on can only be applied to NEW builds, thus encouraging investors to build new properties (instead of buying all the currently existing ones and driving prices up). So who is negatively impacted by this? Literally no one. Who does this benefit? Anyone who wants to live in a house because it increases housing supply and makes the housing market less competitive for investors vs home owners.
What about capital gains tax discount? Basically, in the 90s John Howard made it so that when you sold a house you'd get a 50% discount where half of the profit wasn't taxed. Investors went woohoo! Bought up all the affordable houses to drive prices up and make a big profit. It fueled the housing crisis for the past 30 years. But Labor went "actually, what if we just tax it at 30% instead with no discount?" So instead of half of the money being tax free, it's all taxed. You know... like how making money normally works???
30% is still actually lower than the top two income tax brackets so rich people will still manage to make lots of money without having to work BUT... they'll just have to pay a little tax. BUT only on profit. If a property makes a loss it's not taxed. The amount of tax is also adjusted down relative to inflation so a $100,000 profit isn't taxed $30,000 but actually less depending on how much inflation happened during the time the asset was held.
Also capital gains tax doesn't apply to the home you live in so unless you're a property investor YOU'RE NOT GETTING TAXED! THE VAST MAJORITY OF AUSTRALIANS ARE NOT BEING AFFECTED HERE AND YET WE'RE SEEING WIDE PUBLIC OUTRAGE OVER A TAX DESIGNED TO MAKE THE HOUSING MARKET LESS COMPETITIVE AND THUS EASIER FOR HOME OWNERS TO ENTER IT.
This budget literally mostly just slightly inconveniences the 1% of investors who own a WHOPPING 25% OF INVESTMENT PROPERTIES IN AUSTRALIA.
The capital gains tax discount was never for working Australians! It was never for you! It was always just a tax perk for investors to encourage them to buy up houses away from those who needed them and hike up rents. Labor fixed that.
No wonder the rich media moguls and politicians who make most of their money off property investments like Pauline Hanson and Angus Taylor are mad about it and want YOU to be mad too. They don't want to pay taxes! Booo! The problem is: if we can't get the uber-wealthy to pay a little bit of tax then YOU will NEVER own a home!
So the changes are really simple. They're mild. And yet the right is outraged over how it even slightly benefits working and ordinary Australians.
