David Alexander interview on ABC RN Breakfast
Transcript: 25 May 2026
Sally Sara:
David Alexander is the acting Chief Executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and joins me in our Parliament House Studio. David, welcome to Breakfast.
David Alexander:
Oh, thanks, Sally. I should just say I'm not acting at the moment. The boss has just arrived back in Australia, but I'm happy to be here.
Sally Sara:
Okay. All right, good. David, what are the main issues for business as far as you can see from the CGT proposal?
David Alexander:
Yeah, thanks, Sally. We're very concerned that the government is increasing the tax on investment in business. We knew that the government was looking at going after investment in established housing, but very shocked to see that the government is now going to put up substantial taxes on investment in business and that's going to have a negative impact on investment in business naturally enough. So we're surprised that the government has looked to do this. We don't think that tax reform requires extra taxes on investment in business. If anything, we need more investment in business in the future. You can't have an ongoing first world high wage economy if businesses in the future are not thriving and loading them up with extra taxes is only going to undercut their ability to ensure that prosperity.
Sally Sara:
Is there a realistic concern that some investment opportunities will go offshore, say, to Singapore or other places?
David Alexander:
For sure. You cannot have any other outcome if you're going to load up more investment taxes in Australia then investment will be encouraged to move offshore. That's a natural consequence. We should be making ourselves more competitive on investment. Other countries are doing this and that investment that they secure helps to drive jobs and innovation and expansion. So the whole premise of this extra tax on investment in business is wrong.
Sally Sara:
Are you getting any traction with government? Are they listening to these concerns, do you think?
David Alexander:
The government has accepted that there will be damage in certain parts of business in the tech sector startups. But we say the damage is beyond tech and it's beyond startups. The whole notion here is to increase taxes on gains. So this is going to go into all industries, small, medium, and large businesses. So ameliorating the damage in one sub-sector is really not going to cut it. The government needs to rethink the whole approach so that the starting point is no extra taxes on investment in business.
Sally Sara:
Should small business owners pay a lower level of tax than wage earners in your view?
David Alexander:
So I think you're talking about the trusts measure. So the government is looking to raise a very large amount of revenue also from extra tax on small and medium businesses using trusts. So governments have provided the trust mechanism for decades. It's a way of giving the benefits to business of not just things like asset protection and business continuity, but also containing tax costs. And those governments, both sides over many years have realised that containing tax costs is of benefit to those businesses, but the alternative is driving up tax costs and that incurs its own whole set of problems. You're going to get less productivity if you're going to load extra costs on business. So that's why governments haven't sought to increase taxes on business through that mechanism.
Sally Sara:
You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. I'm speaking with David Alexander from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Your organisation was involved in the Treasurer's Productivity Economic Roundtable last year. Do these reforms run contrary to what was discussed, proposed, understood in those meetings?
David Alexander:
Yeah. We welcomed the government's new focus on productivity that was welcome and the Treasurer hosted a round table. We were at the round table. We welcomed the participation in that discussion. Unfortunately, this does run in completely the opposite direction. Loading up businesses with extra taxes is not a path to productivity. It's a path to eroding our productivity. So we think that there needs to be a rethink of this whole scenario to ensure that the ongoing prosperity of business. It's mystifying that the government would look to penalise businesses. Those businesses that make the big gains are the ones at the front edge of the productivity frontier. They're the best practise businesses in all sorts of industries. Those businesses that are doing well on productivity shouldn't be penalised for their good work, but that's what this new design does. And so we think that that's a deeply flawed starting point for any tax changes.
Sally Sara:
David Alexander, I really appreciate you coming into the studio this morning. Thank you very much.
David Alexander:
Thanks, Sally.