23/05/2026
What they said πππ
The whole "Albo owns 47% of my business" meme was a beautiful thing to watch. There were plenty of reply guys in the comments on all business pages being nitpickers, arguing semantics and displaying straight contempt for the entrepreneurs in our society, but they completely missed the point.
Yeah, we all know "Albo doesn't literally own 47% of our business"
That'd be absurd because then the Gov would actually share downside risk.
Yeah, we know the tax rate is progressive.
We know that the CGT discount only applies when your business is sold.
It's not an outrage at this singular specific line item in the budget.
It's "The straw that broke the camel's back", and the Overton Window is shifting.
People are willing to talk about the trials and tribulations of running a business publicly, and no longer care about looking weak, desperate or like a failure.
Thatβs a far bigger cultural shift than you may realise.
Business isn't meant to be easy.
Business is a battlefield, the best offerings will win.
There isn't a divine benevolence surrounding business owners meaning that we should guarantee them success, and thatβs not what business owners are asking for.
People who start a business know the risks. They know the data. They see the cafes close, the shops shut up and the brands disappear. But being entrepreneurial is less a occupation and more a vocation. You have to enter the marketplace - the battlefield - to see what youβre made of. To harden your steel.
But the battlefield isnβt just your idea versus marketplace sentiment. The battlefield is an unnatural, adulterated landscape riddled with compliance, liability, inflation, bad fiscal policy - the list goes on. Time, stress and costs surrounding all sides of business are slowly compounding. Frogs in a pot, slowly boiling.
All the stuff that we need and want will be available - until it isnβt. It will just no longer come from hardworking Aussie families.
Multi-national zombie corporations will be there to service us.
You know, those big businesses that can lobby, comply, pay the fines and keep growing while offshoring profits through an Irish business registration or some other fancy loophole that is conveniently left open.
China and other nations who couldnβt care less about their emissions will continue to feed us our phones, cars and everything in between while we crush any and all domestic production to chase Nyet Zero, to virtue signal that we have shaved our 1% global emissions down to whatever.
Small business is increasingly "no man's land", a very hostile curated environment.
"Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" is now a cultural joke rather than fatherly advice to βwork hard and have a goβ.
And still, trying to create and produce is a damn more impressive and useful vocation than most, and the overlord class is squeezing the energetic and the entrepreneurial close to the point where they can no longer sell themselves the pipe dreams of
"Next year will be better"
"Next budget will be better"
βNext product will be better"
βInflation will slow downβ
"I'm my own boss"
"I have freedom because I βwork for myselfβ β
βIβm building equityβ
Don't mistake the signal for the noise.
