Our people
Tom Humphries
Melbourne · Former Treasury, now tech startups, local councillor
We want you to get Ahead. And this is how.
Putting your dream back within reach.
Are you getting ahead, or being held back?
No spam. Everything on how we make this happen. Unsubscribe anytime.
Better Off?
Your estimated tax right now
Tax in each band
Give yourself a tax cut
Today, a gain held over twelve months gets the 50 per cent discount. From 1 July 2027 the discount goes, replaced by indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax on the gain. Capital gains tax is only paid when you sell. Put in a sale and see the difference.
What your taxes are paying off
You put in about $0 in income tax and Medicare this year. Your share of the national debt is about $0. The interest alone on your share is about $0 a year, before a dollar of it is paid down.
Your share is gross Commonwealth debt from Budget Paper 1 divided by the adult population from the ABS, about $46,800. The interest is that share times the rate the government pays to borrow, about 2.9 per cent, which is roughly $27 billion of interest on about $940 billion of debt. Approximate, locked from source before launch.
Where it goes instead
Two ways the money disappears. Named, priced and sourced. Tap any line for the source.
So find the savings yourself. Move the levers. Reach surplus. It is not as hard as they say.
Every number is sourced and checkable. See how we worked it out
The fight right now
Every dollar borrowed today is a bill posted forward to people too young to vote, and to children not yet born. They never agreed to it. They will pay it anyway.
More tax.
Not because the country is under-taxed. Because government has forgotten how to stop spending.
This is not a party problem. It is a spending problem.
And capital gains is the first fight.
From 1 July 2027, the 50 per cent discount goes. In its place: indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax on the gain.
That means more tax when you sell. More tax on taking a risk. More tax on building something, backing yourself, investing, or getting ahead.
They spent the money. Now they want to tax you to pay for it.
We fight these changes first.
The GST is pooled and carved up between the states. So a blowout in one capital does not stay there. It is quietly underwritten by households in every other state, through the carve-up. Victoria's debt is paid down, in part, by a nurse in Perth and a tradie in Brisbane. You are already paying for a project you never voted for, in a state you may never have visited.
Did you know
About 40 per cent of a new home is tax. You just cannot see it on the receipt.
Independent estimates put union militancy at up to 30 per cent on major public builds. On a big project that is billions, and your share is in the thousands.
Snowy 2.0 went from $2 billion to past $12 billion. A weather website went from $4 million to $96 million. It all adds up, and you pay for it.
Our people
Latest
What this is
You work hard. You back yourself. You should be getting somewhere.
There is a loud voice for more tax, more rules and more government. There has never been one for the people trying to get ahead. That is the gap. That is us.
We make that case every day, in the feed and the group chat, not behind closed doors in secret Canberra meetings.
Donate
The people pushing higher taxes, more red tape and more control are organised, funded and everywhere. Ahead is built for the people trying to get somewhere.
If you can afford it, chip in. Help us fight for lower tax, less red tape, more choice and a real reward for having a go.
Donations are not tax deductible. Donor terms and privacy notice to be supplied before launch.
Plain English, sourced, and honest even where it cuts against us. Yes, there are tax cuts coming. We show them, then show what bracket creep quietly takes back. Numbers live in a version-controlled file the campaign team refreshes each budget. Get one wrong and a journalist ends us inside a week, so we under-claim rather than over-claim.
Your marginal income tax rate plus the Medicare levy, on 2025-26 resident thresholds. The levy is modelled with the low-income shade-in, not a flat 2 per cent on everyone, because the flat version over-taxes low earners.
Source: ATO resident rates 2025-26 (exact). Levy thresholds: latest published, updated to 2025-26 in the data file.
About 40 per cent of a new home is tax, charges and regulatory cost. It is government, not pure tax, and it lands harder than a flat dollar figure. We scale the share to your city, because every home is not the same. We keep about $200,000 only as a conservative direct-tax floor.
| City | Government share of a new house-and-land package |
|---|---|
| Sydney | about 50 per cent, around $576,000 (median package near $1.18m) |
| Melbourne | 43 per cent |
| Brisbane | 41 per cent (more than doubled since 2019) |
| Adelaide | 37 per cent |
| Perth | 36 per cent |
Source: Centre for International Economics and HIA, 2025. City dollar figures outside Sydney: derived, confirmed against the report before launch.
Gross debt divided across the adult population. Labelled as gross debt, not net.
Source: Budget Paper 1, 2026-27. Population: ABS. Debt total and population: locked from source before launch.
What you would keep if your tax thresholds had kept pace with inflation since May 2022, when the government took office. It hits everyone with a wage, it is the government's own machine, and it is bulletproof. We use the exact ABS All Groups CPI index ratio from the June 2022 quarter to the latest print, not an average of annual rates.
Source: ATO thresholds and ABS All Groups CPI. Cumulative factor (indicative ~18 per cent): locked to the decimal from the ABS series before launch.
The legislated mechanics, not a single constant. From 1 July 2027, for individuals and trusts, the 50 per cent discount is replaced by cost-base indexation with a 30 per cent minimum tax on the real gain. An asset held across that date splits: the slice accrued to 1 July 2027 keeps the discount, the slice after gets indexation and the 30 per cent floor. A new-build or affordable-housing election can keep the discount. The gap is the extra tax under the new regime against today's treatment.
Source: the legislation, in the project. Post-2027 inflation assumption for indexation: placeholder pending the data file. Exact apportionment follows the ATO formula.
Flying, Treading water, Going backwards or Held back, computed from your inputs: your marginal rate, the government share loaded into housing in your city, and whether you rent, save or own. Deterministic, never an invented suburb score and never an AI guess.
Two numbers from the first build are gone and stay gone. “Years added to your deposit” tied to the capital gains changes is wrong, because those changes are forecast to nudge prices down, not slow a saver. “Taxed on money you have not made yet” is the unrealised-gains super line, not this fight, which taxes real gains.
Shown as concrete, checkable facts: approvals, licences, time to start or build. Never a fabricated per-person dollar.
Last updated: 15 June 2026
Ahead (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a national advocacy movement for Australians trying to get ahead and being held back. We campaign for lower taxes, less red tape, more choice, more freedom, and a real reward for having a go.
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, hold, use, disclose and protect your personal information, and how you can access, correct or make a complaint about the personal information we hold about you.
This policy applies to all personal information we collect through our website, online tools, sign-up forms, donation forms, campaign action tools, email and SMS communications, social media activity, advertising campaigns, events and any other interaction you have with Ahead.
We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the thirteen Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). By providing your personal information to us, or by using our website, you agree to the practices described in this policy.
Ahead is operated by Dempsey Advisory (ABN 26 950 759 279).
Our registered office is 66 Hunter Street, Sydney, NSW 2000.
We collect personal information that you provide to us directly, information that is generated when you use our website, and information we receive when you use our tools or take campaign actions.
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We may not link tool inputs to your identity unless you submit your details, save a result, share a result through a form, make a donation, sign up, or otherwise provide identifying information in the same interaction or campaign flow.
We collect personal information in the following ways:
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By joining our campaign, signing up to receive our communications, making a donation, attending an event, using a campaign action tool, or otherwise engaging with Ahead, you expressly consent to us collecting, holding, using and disclosing information that may reveal your support for Ahead’s objectives, campaigns or views. We will only use this information for the purposes set out in this policy, or as required or authorised by law.
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We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in this policy, to comply with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements.
If you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your personal information, we will do so unless we are required to retain it by law or have a legitimate reason to retain it. Please note that it may take a short period for your details to be removed from all of our active systems and that back-up copies may be retained for a limited period in accordance with our data retention standards.
Under the Australian Privacy Principles, you have the right to:
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in section 17. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe, generally within thirty (30) days.
If you believe we have breached the Australian Privacy Principles or mishandled your personal information, please contact us first using the details in section 17. We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and aim to resolve it within thirty (30) days.
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If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise any of your rights, or want to make a complaint, please contact us at:
Ahead
Attention: Privacy Officer
PO Box 1004, Darlinghurst NSW 1300
Website: [insert Ahead website URL]
Email: [insert Ahead contact email]
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, our technology, legal requirements or other factors. The revised policy will be posted on our website with an updated “Last updated” date. Your continued use of our website or our campaign services after a change is published will be treated as your acceptance of the updated policy.
Last updated: 15 June 2026
These Terms of Use govern your access to and use of the Ahead website (the “site”) and the online tools, forms and services offered through it (the “services”). By accessing or using the site, you agree to be bound by these terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to these terms, you must not use the site or the services.
Ahead is a national advocacy movement for Australians trying to get ahead and being held back. Ahead campaigns for lower taxes, less red tape, more choice, more freedom, and a real reward for having a go.
The site is operated by Dempsey Advisory (ABN 26 950 759 279), with its registered office at 66 Hunter Street, Sydney, NSW 2000.
You may use the site and services for your own personal, non-commercial purposes, including to learn about Ahead, use our online tools, sign up to receive communications, make a donation, share campaign material, and take campaign actions made available through the site.
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You may view the site and its contents using a web browser, and you may make a reasonable number of electronic or printed copies of parts of the site solely for your own personal, non-commercial use. You may also share campaign material using the share functions made available on the site, provided you do not alter the material in a misleading way.
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We may update these Terms of Use from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, our technology, legal requirements or other factors. The revised terms will be posted on the site with an updated “Last updated” date. Your continued use of the site or the services after a change is published will be treated as your acceptance of the updated terms.
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If you have any questions about these Terms of Use or wish to contact us for any other reason, please use the following details:
Ahead
PO Box 1004, Darlinghurst NSW 1300
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Your privacy is important to us. Information that we collect through the site and the services is handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms of Use.