🇭🇲🇮🇱🇹🇼🇷🇺 Open Source Everything 🐧🤗₿
Melbourne, Victoria
Joined May 2012
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Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
You can scarcely believe it. Imagine appointing someone to run the ATO who has spent 35 years in the public service, with no documented experience running a small business. Nearly $929,000 a year, yet seemingly unaware of how businesses manage cash flow.
The disconnect between Canberra and small business in Australia is quite staggering.
This is the ATO Commissioner Rob Heferen appointed in 2024 by @AustralianLabor Treasurer @JEChalmers. He’s a career Public Servant and he’s paid $928,980 a year. He’s never worked outside of the APS (Australian Public Service) or run a small business & neither has anyone on his team, yet he was happy to cut off credit card payments, the cash flow lifeline small businesses depend on when the tax bill lands. Well done @JNampijinpa for holding him to account.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Why I think this crypto bill deserves real scrutiny
I’m not against paying tax. I want to say that upfront, because whenever someone raises privacy, the first response is “what have you got to hide?”
Nothing. And that’s the point. Wanting privacy is not evidence of wrongdoing. It’s a right.
I’ve read the Treasury Laws Amendment Bill 2026: Tax Information Reporting, and the explanatory notes that come with it. Here’s why it worries me.
1. Parliament is being asked to approve a power, not a policy.
The bill doesn’t list what data will be collected about you. Treasury’s notes give an “expected” list: your name, address and bank details, plus the date, time, value and ID of every transaction. But the final list is set by the ATO later, and it can change.
It goes further. The bill lets the government sign Australia up to any future international data sharing framework by regulation. No new law. No vote to approve it. Treasury’s notes say these frameworks concern foreign residents. The bill itself doesn’t say that anywhere.
A reassurance in the notes is not a protection in law.
2. It collects more than tax needs.
Moving crypto to your own wallet isn’t a taxable event. You haven’t sold anything or made a gain. Yet that transfer must be reported.
If it isn’t taxable, why does a tax law need to know about it? The only thing it reveals is where you keep your money, and that you hold it yourself.
3. The transaction ID could follow you forever.
Every report includes a “transaction ID”. The bill doesn’t define it.
If it means the blockchain ID, your name could be linked to your wallet and its entire history. The Bitcoin ledger is public and permanent. You can change a password. You can’t change a blockchain.
The ATO doesn’t need this to calculate tax. The date, value and asset are enough.
4. It goes further than banks.
Banks report your annual interest to the ATO, not every transaction. Transfers between your own accounts aren’t reported at all. Where cash is reported, there’s a $10,000 threshold.
This bill reports every crypto transaction of any value, every quarter. The notes never explain why crypto should be treated more intrusively.
5. The safeguards aren’t there.
No limit on how long data is kept. No security standard. No breach rules. No notice that you’ve been reported. No published human rights assessment or privacy impact assessment.
Just one sentence pointing to existing privacy law.
6. This is a safety issue, not just a privacy one.
A bank transfer can be frozen or reversed. A Bitcoin transfer can’t. If someone forces you to send it, it’s gone.
Criminals know this. Physical attacks on crypto holders are rising worldwide, and gangs now pick victims using leaked databases and exchange records. In France, a tax official allegedly sold crypto investors’ details to criminals.
Optus. Medibank. Latitude. Databases leak.
In trying to stop one crime, tax evasion, we risk making another far easier.
7. It’s been rushed.
We’ve had 13 days to comment. Treasury’s average is 27. That’s not enough time for a bill that hands this much power to officials.
What I’m asking for
Not to scrap it. To do it properly:
A minimum threshold
No blockchain IDs or wallet addresses
No reporting of transfers to your own wallet
Retention, security and breach rules written into the law
Any new international data sharing approved by Parliament
More time to consult
Submissions close at midnight on 28 October. Anyone can make one, and it doesn’t need to be formal.
consult.treasury.gov.au/c202…
I cried 🤣
Voici François-Louis Artois d’Hauteville, 15 ans, un jeune Français issu d’une ancienne lignée normande.
Il manifeste contre le manque de professeurs de philosophie dans son établissement — sa matière de prédilection. L’an dernier, un remplaçant a dû condenser en un seul semestre, à marche forcée, l’ensemble du programme consacré à Hegel et à Kant.
François a été le seul de sa classe à tenir le rythme : il avait déjà lu La Phénoménologie de l’esprit. Ses camarades, eux, peinaient à suivre, découvrant à peine cette œuvre en parallèle de la Critique de la raison pure.
Il a bien tenté de les aider après les cours, mais ces séances empiétaient sur ses engagements bénévoles dans une maison de retraite et sur ses leçons de violoncelle.
Voilà pourquoi, sur cette photo, il consulte sur son téléphone un cours consacré à la lecture des partitions et aux fondements de la musique classique.😇🇫🇷
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Labor claims the new tax on trusts is about making the system fairer.
Families use them for asset protection, estate planning and income splitting.
Many poorer families don’t know enough about them or simply can’t afford them.
But the way to level the playing field isn’t to punish some families - it’s to lift everyone else up.
Simplify the law. Make estate planning easy for people to do themselves. Allow family income splitting without forcing them into a trust.
That would be genuine reform.
While this is just a tax grab.
Whenever government claims it’s making the system fairer by making something harder or more expensive, it’s a cop out.
Reforming a system for fairness means expanding opportunity for all - not removing it for some.
But that’s all this government knows how to do - bring some people down instead of lifting everybody else up.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
PM Anthony Albanese’s upcoming holiday schedule before Christmas 2026:
🇭🇺 Oct 22-23: Budapest (Hungarian Rev. 70th)
🇦🇬 Nov 1-4: Antigua & Barbuda (CHOGM)
🇹🇷 Nov 11-12: Antalya (UN Climate Conf.)
🇵🇭 Nov 16-18: Manila (EAS & ASEAN)
🇨🇳 Nov 18-19: Shenzhen (APEC)
🇮🇳 Dec TBA: New Delhi (Quad Summit)
🇺🇸 Dec 14-15: Miami (G20)
This will cost us a fortune. Not to mention the money he will give away, our money. All in the name of "climate change"
Albanese is pictured here, waving to nobody. The tarmac is empty.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
@cjoye on the underlying forces keeping inflation elevated in Australia.
In this episode of Straight Talk, I sit down with economist Chris Joye for round five, a frank conversation about government spending, immigration, productivity and Australia’s economic future.
Chris argues that Australia’s challenges run deeper than events in the Middle East. He examines what he describes as $660 billion in additional government debt since 2022, the pressure population growth is placing on housing and infrastructure, and an expanding public service alongside declining private sector productivity. He also questions the Reserve Bank’s “narrow path” strategy, whether political influence has shaped its approach to inflation, and the cost to Australian households.
I then ask Chris what needs to change: how to rein in spending, lift productivity and get Australia’s economy back on track.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
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Learn more: docs.x.ai/x-subscription/uni…
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Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Ever wondered why PM Albanese is so ill-advised? Like does anyone advise him. I did the research, strap yourself in. For context Labor legend PM Bob Hawke had 15 staff in his PM office.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
The real reason we don't use nuclear in Australia is politics.
Despite having the most uranium in the world, we have some of the most anti nuclear laws in the world.
Here's my full editorial where I make the case for nuclear in Australia:
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Chamlers is not the only incompetent. We have a whole cabinet and federal party full to the brim with them.
The whole bumbling incoherent lot need to be shown the door. I'd say they are a party of clowns, but that would be insulting to clowns.
Should “Lucky Jim” Chalmers be sacked for sheer incompetence?
Suddenly, it’s a serious question.
Members of his own party are baying for blood.
In the real world of private enterprise, a place Jim Chalmers has never set foot in, an executive pulling a $439,000 salary who spectacularly fails to meet their KPIs would be shown the door immediately.
Instead, Chalmers remains in deep denial, veering dangerously into pure arrogance.
He rejects all criticism, blames everyone else for his Budget blues, and ignores the data. Even the ALP Green Left cheer squad embedded at the ABC is starting to abandon him.
The reality? Labor has crashed to its lowest point in history.
A recent poll has Labor tumbling to its lowest primary vote ever recorded, just 25 per cent.
Over 1.5 million Australians who voted for the government at the last election have already abandoned them.
The primary vote hasn't found the floor, it is in absolute free fall.
Former Queensland ALP state secretary Cameron Milner didn't hold back, labelling Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers as the “Thelma and Louise of Australian politics, driving Labor over the cliff”
Milner rightly points out that Chalmers’ May Budget waged a war on aspiration, a war on wealth, and effectively destroyed the economy for small businesses and households.
One of the country’s most respected economists, Judith Sloan, formally wrote Chalmers off as “one of the most useless treasurers ever”
He isn't a “Bogan from Logan” he’s a career political staffer with a PhD in political science who has spent his entire life in the Canberra bubble, completely disconnected from the working class Australians he was supposed to represent.
Labor has officially lost the working class to One Nation, and the NSW Right is reportedly ready to come after Chalmers' scalp.
Something has to give.
You cannot run a country when only one in four people vote for the major governing party.
It is a total, unmitigated disaster.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Asked for 6k but decided to upscale to 8k. Truly epic image.
omarchy theme install github.com/tcballard/omarchy…
@dhh you know what do to
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
THE AUSTRALIAN GREENS’ GROTESQUE DOUBLE STANDARD
@DavidShoebridge & @MehreenFaruqi say 26 January should not be celebrated because it marks invasion, dispossession & Indigenous suffering
Yet pro-Palestine activists are holding events on 7 October - the anniversary of Hamas terrorists invading Israel and slaughtering Jews
Where is the @Greens outrage about the sanctity of that date ?
Apparently one people’s day of mourning deserves respect
Jewish suffering & murder do NOT
A grotesque double standard
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
I am so old remember when Beirut was referred to as the Paris of the middle-east.
Now Paris is referred to as the Beirut of Europe.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Treasury confirms 83% of all new jobs growth in the last year are Non-Market Jobs, in other words, TAXPAYER funded jobs.
All to hide a recession
Vote one nation to save the nation 🇦🇺🇦🇺🧡
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
The test for any regulatory change is this: do the long-term productivity gains outweigh the short-term adjustment costs?
The card surcharge ban fails that test.
Change comes at a direct cost - businesses pay for advice, compliance and new systems.
Reacting to change also takes focus away from building the business - uncertainty can be paralysing.
Do I also want simpler pricing? Absolutely.
Could businesses with stable costs, productivity growth and strong profits absorb the fees? Yes.
But we don’t have that economy at all - so this is shocking timing for this.
The challenges we face demand deregulation - and if we can’t do that, we should just constrain spending.
Because more rules without the productivity payoff just leads to more inflation - and that’s the last thing we need right now.
Our PM is financially illiterate.
Banning the surcharge doesn’t remove the cost.
Businesses still pay to accept cards - they just can’t show it as a line item.
Expect higher prices, minimum spends and cash discounts.
Lower prices come from lower taxes, lower input costs and higher productivity.
This change delivers none of those, so there will be unintended consequences.
Costs are likely to be simpler, but higher.
Alex_A 🇦🇺🏃⚡️ retweeted
Another Labor stuff up..
Small businesses was given eight hours of notice before ATO advised them of a credit card change.
Following the removal of credit and debit surcharges from today the ATO has now announced it will no longer accept credit card payments from SME’s.
The move by the ATO follows the @AlboMP govt earlier this year announcing credit card surcharges would be banned in an effort to take pressure of consumers paying the $1.6bn in additional fees annually.
But the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry slammed the ATO for “utter hypocrisy” in refusing to absorb the costs of extending payment options to credit cards, yet “expects small businesses across the country to absorb them because of a ban the government is implementing today”.
In damning revelations, ACCI also confirmed the ATO only informed the sector about the change due to come into effect from November at 4pm on Wednesday, just hours before the planned media release at 12am.
“When decisions like this are deliberately hidden until the last moment, it is little wonder so many small businesses are angry at the government,” ACCI chief executive Andrew McKellar said.
“Surcharging was never a revenue tool for small businesses, it was just a way to transparently recover merchant service fees. This ban is causing dread across small businesses who are bracing for increased costs at the terminal, reprinting menus and putting up prices today.”
And in case you are wondering why small business would pay via credit car the to ACCI’s latest small business report, shows that a significant share of small businesses are continuing to use credit cards as a short-term tool to manage liquidity and meet liabilities, with nearly 49% of operators reporting that maintaining profitability and cash flow was one of their biggest business challenges.
A further 54% identified cash flow and financial pressure as a major source of stress, with Mr McKellar warning the removal of credit card payment options may therefore have a greater impact on those businesses already facing cash flow constraints than the ATO’s headline numbers suggest.
theaustralian.com.au/nation/… via @australian
