Australian tech entrepreneur Fred Schebesta is moving his family to Singapore, saying the country’s economic conditions and Labor’s proposed tax reforms have made Australia a less attractive place to build a business.

Schebesta, who established the comparison platform Finder in 2006, has become an outspoken critic of the Albanese government’s planned changes to the tax system.

He described the proposal to replace Australia’s existing 50 per cent capital gains tax discount with an inflation-linked arrangement as the “nail in the coffin”, claiming it would encourage more entrepreneurs to take their businesses offshore.

“The innovators are leaving. We’re done,” he told Yahoo! Finance on Thursday.

Schebesta said the personal cost of creating a company was often underestimated, pointing to the pressure, sacrifice and uncertainty involved for entrepreneurs and their families.

He questioned why founders should see a large portion of their eventual capital gain taken in tax after enduring years of risk and hardship, arguing that such an approach reflected the wrong attitude towards innovation.

The Finder co-founder is relocating from Sydney to Singapore with his wife and their four children.

Among Singapore’s advantages, he cited its zero capital gains tax, access to the wider Asian region — including its proximity to China — and its reputation as a business-friendly hub. He also pointed to government grants and tax incentives available to international companies and overseas entrepreneurs.

“The Singapore government has an initiative to bring businesses into the country. They are actively encouraging companies to relocate there,” he said.

Schebesta also posted a list of complaints about Australia and his reasons for leaving on social media.

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He referred to higher interest rates and inflation of about four per cent during the Albanese government’s term, although interest rates are set by the Reserve Bank of Australia rather than the federal government.

He further objected to proposed rules that would prevent businesses from adding credit card payment surcharges to customers’ bills.

Schebesta argued that removing the surcharge option could ultimately lead companies to increase their prices instead.

He also described Australia’s hot climate as a “workplace hazard” and criticised what he called a three-tier healthcare payment model involving taxes, insurance and out-of-pocket medical fees.

The businessman urged other startup founders and younger Australians to consider opportunities abroad, despite the practical difficulties involved in moving countries.

He said young people hoping to buy a home should consider working overseas if they could find a market where their earnings were higher and they retained more of their income after tax.

‘Then you can actually build your wealth, and then come back and buy your house in Australia.

‘That’s what I think young people should do. Leave.’

Mr Schebesta said he had met other Australians in Singapore who had recently made the move overseas.

‘Everyone here is excited,’ he said, describing Singapore as ‘a place of prosperity, not of more regulation’.

Mr Schebesta made his fortune at just 26 years old when he founded Finder alongside Frank Restuccia and Jeremy Cabral. 

In 2021, the AFR Rich List estimated his personal fortune at approximately $340million. At the time, Finder was valued between $650million and $770million.

For several years, Meghan has appeared to embrace the trappings of her status. Her taste for conspicuous consumption has been evident in the diamonds, gold accessories, Cartier watch and other luxury items associated with her public image.

Even everyday products such as jam and tea have been presented as premium offerings, with ornate packaging and exceptionally high price tags helping to create an air of exclusivity.

The chocolates included in her notoriously expensive As Ever advent calendar, launched last week, cost almost £6 apiece. Each one is finished with gold lettering said to be based on Meghan’s own handwriting.

Yet photographs showing Meghan outside Claridge’s in Mayfair on Wednesday — wearing £1,700 white trousers and carrying a Chanel handbag worth more than £5,000 — emerged as friends briefed that the Duchess of Sussex is now trying to project a more ‘humble’ image.

It is not necessarily an impression that is immediately apparent.

“She is very conscious of how she wants pictures to land, which is why you have barely seen her,” one friend said.

“She has honestly been trying to keep a low profile. Of course, if you meet someone at Claridge’s, people will notice. But look at how quiet she has been on social media and how little she has been out.”

For someone described by her spokesman as a ‘public figure’, Meghan has indeed made relatively few appearances since she and Prince Harry arrived in the UK by private jet on August 26.

Now, however, she has been seen alongside Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, one of the world’s most prominent advocates for education and philanthropy.

Malala was 15 when she was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2012 after campaigning for girls’ education. She has since become a leading force in international charity work.

The two women first met during the Covid pandemic, when Meghan joined other well-known figures in supporting a 2020 campaign for female education. It became one of several prominent connections Meghan has made with influential women over the years.

Among them was television titan Oprah Winfrey, who attended Meghan and Harry’s 2018 wedding despite having reportedly never met the couple before the ceremony. Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, the wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney, was also among the guests at St George’s Chapel, although it was unclear whether the two women had previously known each other. Sources have since indicated that neither Oprah nor Amal is now in contact with Meghan.

Meghan also entered the orbit of feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Following Steinem’s death last month, the duchess shared a tribute featuring three photographs of the pair together.

Other women once associated with Meghan, including philanthropist Nicole Avant, the wife of Netflix chief executive Ted Sarandos, and designer Tracy James, who is married to former Paramount boss Brian Robbins, also appear to have grown more distant.

Whether the relationship with Malala develops further remains to be seen. The 29-year-old appeared noticeably uncomfortable as she stood alongside Meghan on the pavements of Mayfair.

Malala, who is married and lives in Birmingham, runs the Malala Fund and continues to campaign for girls’ access to education around the world. The pair’s meeting at Claridge’s, where they had afternoon tea costing £95 per person, has not been mentioned on Meghan’s social media accounts. A source close to the duchess said it was simply a private meeting and did not require a public announcement.

There have nevertheless been signs that Meghan is attempting to maintain a lower profile since returning to England. She and Harry were photographed together for the first time last week as they entered a Cotswolds pub, five weeks after their private jet landed in Birmingham.

Meghan has made a smattering of Instagram posts: one, on September 14, showed the Sussexes settling into their rural life, with the children in wellies and a snap of a blazing fire, plus the family fishing at a lake.

A friend said: ‘They are all really happy with how things are going, with the children at school, with where they are living, and with being in Britain. The place where they are staying is perfectly private and they couldn’t be happier with that. Things are going well with Harry’s family as well, but nothing more to be said there.

‘They are optimistic that there will be a revision of their security soon. It’s all good. Both Harry and Meghan are really delighted with the return.’

The friend adds: ‘The relocation to the UK is being served with a dose of humble pie though. There are genuine concerns from them both about how they are being received, how they want what they are doing to land.

‘They have been thinking about it and being very deliberate. They think that if they start posting stuff on Instagram it will land badly. It is part of a thought-out plan to keep their heads down between now and Christmas, when they will go back to California for the holidays. They don’t want to shove themselves down people’s throats.’

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Some self-awareness of the couple’s deep unpopularity seems like a good place to start. Approval ratings have plummeted since their Windsor wedding.

Harry’s memoir Spare, their Oprah interview and the wholesale trashing of the Royal Family and the ‘institution’ in the hit Netflix docu-series Harry & Meghan have turned many against the couple. If they really have arrived seeking peace and reconciliation as their friends say (plus an English schooling experience for children Archie and Lili), then a dose of quiet humility – and a dose of quiet, full stop – would appear reasonable.

At the children’s school, Meghan, 45, has been making friends with other parents. There are apparently some plans for a big Thanksgiving lunch with other American mothers at the children’s school at the end of November – there is certainly a big contingent of US expats locally. This, again, will be kept private.

Meghan needs all the support and good PR she can get. The couple left the UK in order to carve out a ‘progressive new role’ in 2020, leaving them free to earn their own money.

However, their Netflix and Spotify deals have come to an end and their Archewell charity essentially closed.

As revealed in this paper in August, Meghan’s keeping up her promotion of her As Ever lifestyle brand, which is not on sale outside the US.

Apparently, there is some ‘tacit acceptance’ that they need to earn a living, and that this can be done more or less within the Sandringham agreement drawn up after they quit the UK, as long as the commercial activity is outside the UK.

Last week, she announced her new festive range, and opened pre-orders for a £112 chocolate advent calendar that is only available to buy in the US.

The calendar – ‘inspired by her Montecito home and garden’ – features a festive illustration of the £11million mansion she and Harry called home for six years.

Prince Harry meanwhile has undertaken a number of charitable engagements, including appearing at a benefit for Ukraine and at the Invictus Spirit awards, without Meghan.

Yesterday, he released a video about grief for the charity Scotty’s Little Soldiers, of which he is a patron. It was filmed over the summer, in California.

Yet the Sussexes might not be as settled in the UK as they appear.

Sources say that it is ‘likely’ that Harry will quit the country (again) if he doesn’t get the improved taxpayer-funded security which he has been demanding for years.

Harry’s belief, apparently, is that his case is unimpeachably strong in terms both of need and entitlement and so he thinks he will get it.

I’m told: ‘He is a target not because of a lifestyle choice he made but because of who he was when he was born.’

However, the friend adds: ‘If he doesn’t get it [police security] then yes I do believe he will go back to Montecito for good and that could be as soon as half-term.’

In which case, this week’s surprising tete-a-tete in Mayfair may be Meghan’s last visit to Claridge’s for some time.

FASHION VERDICT: She’s the duchess of stealth-wealth style 

On an autumn day in Mayfair, the young woman who survived an attack by the Taliban and the duchess who survived her stint as a working member of the Royal Family looked very much in sync: even their clothing – smart trousers and tailoring in browns and creams – seemed to be co-ordinated.

These days, Meghan Markle combines her philanthropic work with growing her lifestyle brand As Ever and has positioned herself as a fashion influencer who may yet design her own luxury clothing range.

Only a few days ago she launched an As Ever advent calendar costing £112 on Instagram, wearing an ivory cashmere sweater, Argent olive green bias cut silk skirt, blush Aquazzura ballet pumps and jewellery, the total value of which was estimated at £75,000.

Yesterday, Meghan dressed in similarly stealth-wealth style, pairing a Crew cashmere sweater in ‘wheat’ by Los Angeles-based luxury label Co Collections (£630) with silky fluid ivory wide-leg ‘Masina’ trousers by Ralph Lauren (£1,700) with Saint Laurent ivory and tan ‘Chris’ loafers (£795) and a toffee brown draped ‘Maxime’ cape coat by Tove costing £1,695. 

Including the jewellery – her necklace alone, a Lovers Duet Diamond and Emerald Chain necklace by Logan Hollowell retails at £16,262 – and her Chanel handbag, likely to cost upwards of £5,000, yesterday’s outfit added up to a cool £26,082.

You wouldn’t expect Malala, the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, to have the same interest in fashion, but she has hired a stylist in the past – Denna Giannini – for special occasions such as the British GQ Heroes Awards, and she knows how to make an entrance.

Yesterday, she wore a pair of brown-and-beige striped flared trousers with a tailored beige blazer and pointy-toed brown heels and looked on point for autumn. Ivory has become Meghan’s year-round signature, brown and beige are the new black for autumn: who’s to say fashion wasn’t a point of discussion for the duo on Wednesday, too?

SHANE WATSON

A 19-year-old Texas woman accused of fatally stabbing a mother of five in broad daylight has been released from jail after a $2 million bond was posted in her case.

Amaya “Cookie” Diaz, 19, is charged alongside her sister, Kitty Mia Diaz, 21, and their friend, Kyandra Renee Faz, 21, in the June 25 killing of 32-year-old Caroline “Caro” Peña.

The three women were arrested soon after Peña’s death. Amaya, who investigators allege was carrying the knife, walked out of the Val Verde County Correctional Facility in Del Rio on Tuesday after securing her release.

The Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office and the correctional facility confirmed to the New York Post that the Diaz family paid $200,000 toward the $2 million bond. Kitty remains in custody.

Bail bond agencies commonly charge about 10% of a defendant’s total bond as the fee for arranging release.

An employee with El Amigo Bonding told the Post that the precise arrangement used in Amaya’s case was private and known only to the family that requested the bond.

The representative also indicated that tensions had already emerged in connection with the case.

“We know that when someone gets killed, problems will happen. And it’s already happening, so [the Diaz family] has to lie low,” the bonding company employee said.

“But we know that justice will prevail. Justice always prevails,” he added.

The Diaz sisters have not yet entered pleas to charges of murder and tampering with evidence. Faz has pleaded not guilty.

All three suspects were taken into custody on the day Peña was killed. Police said, however, that Kitty and Amaya showered before officers formally placed them in handcuffs.

According to the criminal complaint, investigators noticed that the sisters were no longer wearing the clothing seen in earlier video footage. Their hair was also wet, leading police to conclude they had recently showered.

Video from the arrests appeared to show the three women smiling after changing into different clothes.

Amaya was also seen grinning and smirking as officers escorted her away.

Authorities have not explained why Peña went to a home in the 800 block of East 10th Street to meet the women. Her uncle, however, said the victim and the suspects were acquainted.

“It’s a small town. I knew one of their uncles. Their family, everyone has a connection, so it’s even harder,” Peña’s unnamed uncle told the Daily Mail by phone from Del Rio. “I worked with him for 30 years. They were close to us. What can you do?”

The uncle did not speculate on the motive behind the attack, however, police revealed the whole confrontation and killing was captured on video from cameras at Faz’s house. 

‘Carolina was observed arriving at Kyandra’s residence and exiting a black Dodge pickup truck,’ the criminal complaint stated.

‘Shortly after, a black Chrysler 300 arrives on scene, to which Amaya and Kitty exit and confront Carolina. Within the video footage, Amaya is observed exiting the front passenger seat of the vehicle and approaching Carolina.’

Amaya allegedly arrived with a knife in her hand.

‘Within the video footage, Amaya is observed with an object believed to be a knife in her right hand. Amaya and Carolina get into an altercation, and Amaya is observed striking Carolina in the back, where blood can be observed on the back of her shirt,’ the complaint reads.

Kitty and Faz then allegedly joined in the assault before all four women separated and left.

Peña was taken to a local hospital before being transferred to a hospital in San Antonio due to the severity of her wounds.

She died hours later, leaving behind five children, ages three to 16.

Two of Peña’s children are autistic and are being cared for by relatives following their mother’s death.

A photograph taken of the women after the attack was posted on a local Facebook page before later being removed.

The image shows Pena’s white top covered in blood.

Zelina Ochoa, the victim’s friend, said the image was especially difficult to process because she believes it illustrated the imbalance between the alleged attackers and the victim.

‘It’s a very powerful picture because it shows, you know, these three girls showed up with their weapons and Caro showed up with nothing but her hands,’ Ochoa said.

Cookie’s arraignment is scheduled for November 4 after previously appearing in court to have her bond lowered from $5 million to $2 million. Her sister’s bail was lowered as well and has not had her next court date scheduled yet. 

Faz is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing on December 11 and remains in custody on $5.2 million bond.