It's Tuesday, the 14^th of October 2025. The federal government has made major concessions to its landmark policy to increase taxation on superannuation balances above $3 million, including indexing the threshold and sparing unrealised gains from the new levy. The changes, which follow an intervention from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, also include a new $10 million balance threshold, above which an extra 25 percentage points of earnings tax will apply.

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News in brief

Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas for two years have been released to cheers, tears and enormous relief for waiting families. The exchange is the first stage of a plan put forward by US President Donald Trump, though Israel and Hamas have yet to agree to the second phase of the plan, which is designed to bring about a permanent end to the fighting.

The S&P/ASX200 fell nearly one per cent yesterday to 8883 points on what was a rough day for markets. The tech sector led the slide while the energy companies and banks were mostly lower. Commodities stocks bucked the trend as gold hit another new high, this time of $US4059.30 an ounce. 

ANZ’s share price jumped 3.3 per cent yesterday, hitting a ten-year high, after new CEO Nuno Matos laid out aggressive targets to reduce costs and lift performance at the bank.

Penfolds owner Treasury Wine Estates’ share price tumbled 15 per cent yesterday, and is off more than 50 per cent over the past year, after it pulled its full-year profit guidance because of weaker-than-expected trading in China for its flagship brand, and trouble with a distributor handover in the United States

A boom in running, spurred on by COVID and Gen Z wanting a healthier lifestyle, means exercise app Strava is looking to list on Wall Street. The app, launched in 2009 and currently valued at $US2.2 billion, has an average of 50mn monthly active users.

Fear-o-meter

What is remarkable about the federal government’s backflip on taxing of high balance superannuation funds is that it took so long to do.

Few people argue against increasing the tax rate on super balances above $3 million. The problem was with taxing unrealised gains and the lack of indexation. Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers backed down on those issues, but balances above $3 million will still be hit with a higher tax rate.

There is also top-up super amounts for low-income earners, to ensure their super tax rate isn’t higher than their income tax rate.

Why did it take an apparent intervention by the Prime Minister for Chalmers to make what pretty much everyone agrees are sensible changes to super policy?

It went to the last election sticking to its policy, particularly when farmers and small businesses complained about unrealised gains being taxed. It didn’t make any sense.

Reading between the lines, Anthony Albanese told Chalmers to water it down. At least sensible policy won the day.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the huge appetite for investing in property, and what that means for Australia's self-managed super funds - one of the key topics at the recent Class Ignite 2025:

 

"There are now nearly one in three people tracking their property, keen to know what it's worth... I think that speaks volumes for the interest in property.

 

For self-managed super fund trustees, there's probably two things when it comes to property: one is the ability to directly control that asset and to be able to play a role in that. And the second one is that probably compared to shares or managed funds and other asset classes, it feels more real. And I think because it's part of the Australian psyche, people feel more comfortable with that asset class, and so it's more relatable, I think, to investors."

Greed-o-meter

9% of total job ads on SEEK mention 'work from home,' with the number decreasing slightly year on year. But some industries are still seeing increases, and in many cases the percentage of jobs offering flexible work is vastly higher than pre-pandemic.

Source: SEEK

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