A powerful grassroots movement took to Sydney Harbour yesterday, as an estimated 340 luxury vessels gathered off Kirribilli House to send a clear message to the Prime Minister: ordinary Australians are suffering, and they will not be silenced, not even by the need to hire additional crew for the occasion.

The demonstration saw dozens of distressed millionaires waving handmade signs reading “HOW MANY INVESTMENT PROPERTIES IS ENOUGH? LET THE MARKET DECIDE” and “FIRST THEY CAME FOR OUR DISCRETIONARY TRUSTS”.

Participants say the proposed changes to capital gains tax could force ordinary Australians to make impossible sacrifices, such as delaying kitchen renovations on their second holiday home, or in some cases downgrading from imported marble to locally sourced stone.

“It’s devastating,” said Mosman father-of-three and portfolio landlord James Wentworth-Fairweather from the deck of his modest $11 million Riviera. “People think because you own fourteen negatively geared properties you’re somehow wealthy. But after school fees, the Range Rovers and upkeep of the ski chalet, there’s barely anything left”.

“We’ve had to let go of our financial advisor,” fund manager Arabella Sinclair said. “Well, not our main one. But the other one. The one who handled the Cayman stuff”.

She said it was another example of class warfare. “We’re not asking for special treatment. We just think people who contribute the most to society, through property speculation and passive asset appreciation, deserve certainty”.

Her husband agreed. “These people in Government have clearly never run a business, or more to the point, a bucket company structured beneath a family trust with a corporate trustee.

“What the Government needs to understand is Australians are hurting. Especially those Australians currently forced to berth offshore because Rose Bay Marina is full”.