The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have spent the day defending the decision to overhaul the country's capital gains tax system.The Federal Government is delaying its plan to set price caps on home care services used by older Australians.Just a few days after US President Donald Trump's visit to China, Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to arrive in Beijing this evening for his own meetings with President Xi Jinping.CreditsSamantha Donovan, PresenterProgram:More from PMTranscriptSamantha Donovan: Good evening and welcome to PM, I'm Samantha Donovan, coming to you from the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne. Tonight, business owners launch social media attacks on the Prime Minister in response to his proposed changes to the capital gains tax. Also, the Federal Government delays plans to introduce price caps on aged care services in the home and calls for tougher rules for Airbnbs and other short-stay properties in Western Australia to counter the rental crisis.Sharon Charter: I would prefer to live by myself in my own one bedroom unit, but all of those have all been taken up by Airbnbs.Samantha Donovan: First this evening, the Federal Government has spent the day defending its decision to overhaul the country's capital gains tax system. The tax is levied on the profit earned from selling assets. In last week's budget, the Federal Government revealed it planned to break an election promise and scrap a long-standing 50 per cent discount on the tax. The business backlash to the planned hike is growing and as Oliver Gordon reports, some frustrated business people are taking their fight online.Oliver Gordon: Queensland man Tyson Mutzi has been running his small business, Get Hard Concreting, for more than 10 years.Tyson Mutzi: We've got about eight trucks and we've got 15 employees. We work five to six days a week.Oliver Gordon: He wants the Government to change its plan to scrap the 50 per cent discount on capital gains taxes on all assets, so he can keep more of any profits he makes if he sells his business.Tyson Mutzi: I feel like the higher the taxes go up, the less that we're going to be able to take if we ever do sell it.Oliver Gordon: Mr Mutzi has today joined a community of small business owners posting tongue-in-cheek images of themselves next to the Prime Minister.Tyson Mutzi: It was just a photo of him and I in the concrete with a poster saying he's taken 50 per cent of our profits.Anthony Albanese: I think some of them are very flattering and I thank them for picking very nice photos of me.Oliver Gordon: The Prime Minister is trying to see the funny side while explaining the rationale behind the proposed changes.Anthony Albanese: Our policies are very clear. When it comes to capital gains tax, what we are simply doing is returning the system to what was there before 1999. What we've seen since then is a massive distortion of investment towards housing away from other forms of investment.Oliver Gordon: Treasurer Jim Chalmers has also continued explaining the change today, telling a business conference applying the changes to capital gains taxes to all assets, including shares, was necessary.Jim Chalmers: Making changes to the CGT settings for one type of asset and not another type of asset we think would just introduce new distortions and ultimately that's bad for investors and for the economy.Oliver Gordon: But political pundits often say when you're explaining, you're losing. And Nationals leader Matt Canavan is making the most of the discontent around the proposed changes.Matt Canavan: We'll get a mandate from the Australian people to remove and repeal all of Labor's taxes so we can focus on having a stronger economy, support investment and not break promises to the Australian people.Oliver Gordon: The capital gains tax discount has been seen as a key driver of housing unaffordability and the government has argued scrapping the measure will allow more people to enter the housing market. But its plan to scrap the discount for all assets, including shares and businesses, has drawn criticism and led some to call for the reform to only apply to residential housing. That's an idea that Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group, Innes Willox, is open to.Innes Willox: Well, that's one option that should be looked at and examined by the government. There's a sense here that the government has perhaps overreached here, not quite, you know, from Treasury, understanding the impact of what it's proposing. What they're proposing is a penalty for growing a business. And that's a great concern to us and to business owners and to business operators.Oliver Gordon: His concern to sentiment within the business community is slipping.Innes Willox: That's a real risk from these changes that it deters people either from starting or from growing their business. And that's sort of the mindset that's taking hold at the moment among the business community, from start-ups all the way up.Oliver Gordon: Ed Cavanough is the CEO of the McKell Institute think tank and is less concerned about the impact the proposed changes could have on business.Ed Cavanough: What they're really trying to do is make sure that any change is standardised across the entirety of the economy. I think that's a reasonable thing to do. I think that's better policy than carving out a single type of asset. But it certainly has made a bit more of a challenging sell for the government.Oliver Gordon: He's hopeful the debate about the policy sticks to the facts.Ed Cavanough: It's very unlikely that someone who sells a cafe, for example, is going to be paying 47% on that capital gain. But that's the image that we've been told through this campaign. So I think the government does need to do better at making that story really clear. But I do think there's been some disingenuous campaigning from certain voices within the business community.Samantha Donovan: Ed Cavonaugh from the McKell Institute. Oliver Gordon with that report. Well, staying with federal politics, the government is delaying its plan to set price caps on home care services used by older Australians. The measures were to be introduced by July to protect older people using the Support at Home program from being charged too much. Hundreds of thousands of them rely on the program for nursing services and help with things like cleaning and showering. Rachel Mealey has more.Rachel Mealey: Australia's population is ageing. More and more of us will need help at home or in aged care. And Opposition Leader Angus Taylor wants the government to...Angus Taylor: Get it right. Get it right. We're happy to work with the government and stakeholders to get this right. But at the moment, it is a complete and utter mess.Rachel Mealey: The government's Support at Home package came into place in November last year. It helped older people to remain in their homes and receive services like nursing support or help to shower and get dressed. One of that program's stated aims was to introduce price caps by July this year to make sure older people weren't getting charged too much. But now the Minister for Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, says that's not the right approach.Mark Butler: It's important we get the price caps right. We've seen in some other programs, the NDIS is one example. But if you set the price cap a little bit too high, everyone moves up to the price cap. And that is not just bad for budget. More importantly, that's bad for recipients of care as well. So at a time of a lot of price volatility in the economy, particularly connected to the war in Iran, we don't think now is the right time.Rachel Mealey: The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission is the regulatory body that monitors aged care providers. Mark Butler says the government has expanded the commission's powers to give consumers better protection against price gouging.Mark Butler: That will really crack down on any price gouging by providers and make sure that the Aged Care Commission is able to make those providers pay back the prices, but also give more information to consumers about the sort of prices they should be expecting to be charged for particular services. We'll be publishing that so that they can see what sort of prices are there in the market and working with consumer groups to get more robust guidelines around reasonable pricing.Rachel Mealey: Patricia Sparrow is the Chief Executive of the Council on the Aging. She thinks delaying the price caps is the right move.Patricia Sparrow: If we put price caps in now, we would sort of be baking in some transition costs, potentially baking in higher fuel costs, which would mean that the price of services would be higher ongoing. We also know that the experience of the NDIS has been that price caps actually drove costs up.Rachel Mealey: She says increased prices across the board right now would skew the ongoing price for in-home care services.Patricia Sparrow: Where we've landed today, or where governments landed today, is probably the right way forward to allow more time for that consideration while introducing stronger support for people right now.Rachel Mealey: But the Older Persons Advocacy Network, known as OPAN, thinks delaying the price caps simply leaves older people exposed to rising costs. Samantha Edmonds is the Director of Policy, Education and Systemic Advocacy.Samantha Edmonds: So OPAN is disappointed that the price caps have been delayed. Older people are telling us that the uncertainty of cost and our network member advocates have been supporting many older people with significant price rises in their fees. So we were looking forward to seeing these price caps come in to set some consistency for older people, so older people would know what was coming up. So as I said, we are disappointed that these have now been delayed.Rachel Mealey: But aged care provider Catholic Health Australia has taken a different view. It argues that price caps would reduce choice, undermine provider viability and lengthen already strained waitlists, particularly in regional areas.Samantha Donovan: Rachel Mealey. Just a few days after Donald Trump's visit to China, the Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to arrive in Beijing this evening for his own meetings with President Xi Jinping. Will Partlett is an associate professor at the Melbourne Uni Law School and I asked him why Putin is visiting China.Will Partlett: Well he's ostensibly going because it's the 25th anniversary of a treaty of friendship that was signed in 2001 between China and Russia. The real reason is it's because the relationship between China and Russia is growing closer and it's particularly growing closer now because of the war in Iran.Samantha Donovan: Why is that?Will Partlett: This relationship between Russia and China has been very one-sided. China has been in control of much of the trade. Russia is very reliant on China. But now with the Strait of Hormuz closed, China is much more reliant now on Russia for energy to continue to power its economy. So what we're seeing is a kind of an actual recalibration in this relationship. So I think it's an important visit then for Russia to go and if they can try to get a deal on a pipeline, that's really what they're looking for.Samantha Donovan: Yes, tell us more about this pipeline. It's been in the works for a while I understand.Will Partlett: Yeah, I mean they've been negotiating on this for months. It's called the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. It would get oil and gas from Siberia to China. China's been trying to diversify its sources of energy. So they get oil from Turkmenistan, they're getting oil and gas from other parts of the world. But as Hormuz is shut down and it looks like the Middle East might not be a very reliable source of oil and gas, it looks more and more likely that they're going to reach some kind of deal on this second pipeline between Russia and China.Samantha Donovan: And how significant would that be?Will Partlett: It would be a significant achievement for Putin. It would certainly guarantee more money flowing into the Russian economy and into the budget as China would be now tied into particular contracts and so forth with respect to this pipeline. So it'd be very significant for Russia and it would certainly help the Russian war effort and its ability to kind of continue to prosecute the war in Ukraine.Samantha Donovan: Do you think Vladimir Putin is going to be asking Xi Jinping for more help in Ukraine with other resources?Will Partlett: I don't think he'll be asking for more help. I think he'll be seeking reassurances that his recent visit with Trump that Xi Jinping didn't back off any of the current support that the Chinese are giving. And I think he'll get that. I think the Chinese will continue to provide the high level electronics, the chips and dual use semiconductors and telecommunications components that are actually very important in drones that the Russians use and just in general empowering the war effort in Ukraine. So I think he's likely to get more assurances of that. And I think the fact that it's been called literally a week after Trump's visit is another suggestion that Xi Jinping is signaling to the Russians and to the world that this is a relationship between Russia and China that's quite strong.Samantha Donovan: You mentioned that this visit of Putin's to China follows that of President Trump last week. What's the significance of this visit following that of the American president?Will Partlett: To signal for a couple of different ways that the Chinese are signaling. First of all, that they have real convening power. It's within the last six months they've hosted Emmanuel Macron of France, Frederick Merz of Germany, the US president and now Putin. So they're signaling to the world that they are convening power and that they are interested in diplomacy. And I think that's an important signal to the rest of the world, particularly as the United States seems to be kind of on the war path in many parts of the world. And to say that, look, we're the force of stability. So I think it's an important signal on that. And the fact that they're doing it so quickly after the Trump visit is also, I think, a signal to the world that this Russia China relationship is one that Xi Jinping and the Chinese really want to prioritize. And that what might have been four years ago, a visit that was kept quite low key, will now be trumpeted as a real sign of this comprehensive strategic partnership that they'll talk a lot about in the next day or two.Samantha Donovan: In terms of world geopolitics, how significant is it that China is now seemingly playing the role of global diplomat?Will Partlett: Whether in reality this is the truth or not, but it certainly is an attempt by China to seem to be the force or the country in the world that's interested in stability. And that is a powerful message I think they're sending to many other countries in maybe the global south, across Asia and elsewhere, is to say, look, we are the China's the one that's interested in stability and that they're trying to convene and to have people talk to each other and so forth.Samantha Donovan: This projection of peace and diplomacy by China, where does this sit given the fears of many nations that China will in fact try to reclaim Taiwan in the years ahead?Will Partlett: That's the million dollar question, I think, which is this stage they want to be seen as a force of stability. But if they were to try to attempt to militarily seize Taiwan, it would become very clear that they're not a source of stability in international relations anymore. And I do think another subtext to what's happening here and that they'll talk about is that Xi Jinping made it very clear with President Trump that Taiwan is a red line, that he does not want the United States to support Taiwan. And I think there will be a discussion with the Russians and with Putin about how Russia will help China, particularly with energy supply, if there is an invasion of Taiwan and some sort of energy embargo attempted to be placed on them by the United States. So it's trying to pull Russia closer as an ally, I think, in the potential competition clearly that the US and China have over Taiwan.Samantha Donovan: Associate Professor Will Partlett from the Melbourne Uni Law School. This is PM, I'm Samantha Donovan. You can hear all our programs live or later on ABC Listen. One of the most important artificial intelligence companies, OpenAI, is now free to seek more public investment after the world's richest man, Elon Musk, lost his court case against it. Musk had sued the company he co-founded and its boss, Sam Altman, in a California court, claiming the company had strayed from its original mission to benefit humanity. Musk lost on a technicality with the court ruling he had waited too long to file a case. Rachel Hayter has more.Rachel Hayter: The albatross around Sam Altman's neck has been removed.William Savitt: Mr Musk's lawsuit is nothing more than an after the fact contrivance that bears no relationship to reality.Rachel Hayter: Victory for the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman. His lead attorney, William Savitt, praising the unanimous verdict of a California jury, that the world's richest man, Elon Musk, waited too long to sue his former business partner.William Savitt: You brought your claims too late and you did it because you were sitting on them to use them as a weapon of a competitor who can't compete in the marketplace.Rachel Hayter: This story started about a decade ago when Elon Musk made a charitable donation of more than $50 million to OpenAI, the company behind AI chatbot, ChatGPT, which at the time was a non-profit. After Mr Musk left the board, OpenAI became a for-profit company and an astronomically successful one. It's now valued at more than a trillion dollars. In 2024, Elon Musk accused OpenAI of stealing a charity and straying from its original mission to benefit humanity. The court's ruling today that Mr Musk waited too long to file this lawsuit means Sam Altman is now free to float one of the most consequential technology companies in the world.Michael Wooldridge: It clears the decks for them to go public and to make this, to sell their shares in the company on the public market and get the next stage of investment.Rachel Hayter: It would be one of the biggest corporate listings in history and it could happen as soon as this year. But artificial intelligence professor at the University of Oxford, Michael Wooldridge, is worried what the company's private expansion means for transparency.Michael Wooldridge: It's behind closed doors and you and I don't get to scrutinise it. I don't get to see what data is used by me, used about me in training these AI systems.Rachel Hayter: Lance Ulanoff is a technology expert and editor-at-large for the website TechRadar, who shares Professor Wooldridge's concerns.Lance Ulanoff: They don't really have regulation. They're telling us that they're moving at lightning speed to general artificial intelligence, which is AI that seems like it's as smart as us or smarter. We don't have a lot of controls. This to me was a hurdle that was kind of maybe slowing the company down a little bit. I don't think they'll be more reckless because of it, but I do think that it takes away that barrier and now they can move faster.Rachel Hayter: Co-founder of global venture capital firm King River Capital, Zeb Rice, has been investing in AI for nearly 20 years.Zeb Rice: So we're in this moment called hyperscaling with AI where the sergeni is out of the bottle. Humans have gotten the taste of what it's like to have a superintelligence next to you, supporting you in your work or your curiosity and they can't get enough of it.Rachel Hayter: While Elon Musk had argued that OpenAI was created as a non-profit to benefit humanity, offering artificial intelligence as a kind of public utility, Zeb Rice argues it's more like oil, a powerful resource that's not shared equally around the world.Zeb Rice: Because there's a strategic significance to it that on a geopolitical level, which is lost when you talk about sort of electricity, because you can generate electricity anywhere, but the way these foundation models are built, they reflect cultural values and the data centres that produce them are hugely expensive to build. And if you have those located not in your country, it's pretty easy to switch that off.Rachel Hayter: He believes the artificial intelligence sector could not continue its remarkable growth if it remains in the non-profit space.Zeb Rice: When you look at OpenAI is forecasting, I think it's 100 or 150 billion dollars of losses before they can actually get to a profit. Spending that kind of cap X on the hyperscaling of the factories to make this a artificial intelligence, you can't do that as a non-profit.Rachel Hayter: In a post on his social media platform X, Elon Musk says he'll appeal the verdict. He says the judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case, just on a calendar technicality.Samantha Donovan: That report from Rachel Hayter and Angus Randall. To Western Australia now, where housing advocates are calling for tougher action to limit the number of Airbnbs and other short stay accommodations in areas where they're vastly outnumbering long-term rentals. That distortion of the housing market has been an issue across Australia, leaving locals struggling to find a permanent home. But housing advocacy group Shelter WA says in their state, urgent measures are needed. Here's Georgia Loney.Georgia Loney: In Busselton, 220 kilometres south of Perth, Sharon Charter is sitting on the veranda of a weatherboard house she shares with two other women.Sharon Charter: I am 55 and I would prefer at this stage of my life to live by myself in my own one bedroom unit or two bedroom unit. But all of those have all been taken up by Airbnbs.Georgia Loney: Part of her frustration is knowing there are plenty of homes that no one is living in. In Busselton, there are an estimated 1,600 unhosted holiday homes, including Airbnbs, homes managed by agents and other short stay accommodations. That's about 46 for every one permanent rental.Sharon Charter: We have an Airbnb next door and there's another one two doors down the road. There are more Airbnbs advertised and seen around than there are for lease residential signs.Georgia Loney: 40 minutes away in the small rural town of Nannup, it's a similar story. Advocacy group Shelter WA has released new research, finding there are about 90 short stays and no permanent rentals.Opinion: Anybody that would like to bring their young family here and live here and work, the properties that used to be rental properties have been converted to Airbnbs.Georgia Loney: The rise of short stay holiday properties has been blamed for rental stress in communities across Australia. Some states and councils have introduced measures to shift the balance back towards long term rentals. In Western Australia, the state government has been offering $10,000 incentives to landlords who put their homes back on the permanent rental market. Shelter WA's CEO, Kath Snell, says more drastic measures are needed, like a moratorium on Airbnb listings in towns with low rental vacancy rates.Kath Snell: I think we are in a crisis and we need to consider all of the different options and everything that we've got possibly should be on the table. If we look at the short term rental market across WA, when we looked at the figures for this last year, there's around about 10,500 properties that are allocated in the short term rental market and only about a third of that number are available for long term rentals.Georgia Loney: But the Australian and New Zealand Short Term Rental Association, which represents owners and managers of short stay accommodation, says it's important not to oversimplify the debate. It says there are other issues, including the supply of new housing, planning constraints and population growth. In Augusta, 300 kilometres south of Perth, property manager Maxine Petty has about 40 short term listings on her books.Maxine Petty: The majority of these homes that we're dealing with, they're not your everyday rental property. So if there is a moratorium put on it, a lot of houses are just going to be locked up and left empty.Georgia Loney: She says the short term sector provides vital jobs in rural towns and the state government is already offering money to landlords prepared to put their holiday property on the long term market.Maxine Petty: I personally did lose a couple of properties to that incentive and it's up to the individual owners of the properties what they do with their homes. You can't tell them that they have to put a long term person in there.Georgia Loney: The WA government says it has already returned hundreds of properties to the long term market. A spokesperson says the government has also introduced measures to strengthen local planning controls and provide a consistent statewide approach.Samantha Donovan: Georgia Loney reporting from Western Australia. Thanks for joining me for PM. I'm Samantha Donovan. The podcast of the full program is available on ABC Listen. And that's where you'll find ABC News Daily with Sam Hawley each weekday morning too. The latest episode is looking at what Donald Trump's recent trip to China delivered for the AI sector. We'll be back at the same time tomorrow. Good night.5itemsIn this episode1 of 5Business sector angered by tax changesDuration: 4 minutes 36 seconds4m 36s2 of 5Price cap for home aged care services delayed Duration: 4 minutes 4 seconds4m 4s3 of 5Putin set to arrive in ChinaDuration: 5 minutes 43 seconds5m 4 of 5Elon Musk loses OpenAI caseDuration: 4 minutes 59 seconds4m 59s5 of 5Frustration over short stay rentalsDuration: 4 minutes 9 seconds4m 9s