Prosper Australia

23% of NSW land owned by speculators (26/01/07). Amongst the usual doom and gloom of the media attacks upon land tax we find the interesting stat that 23% of NSW land is owned by those lucky enough to own more than one piece of the planet. What are the figures around the country? Is this [...]

The Mercury House prices have pushed us into the top 20 of unaffordable cities in the world. After seven years of boom, the legacy of this government, elected by ordinary working people, will be a city owned by the elites. It need not be so. House building is a competitive industry, and with proper foresight [...]

Higher interest rates are the surface issue “The Great Australian Dream is being threatened by speculative forces rather than interest rates” said Prosper Australia spokesman Karl Fitzgerald today. The Howard Government’s expansion of negative gearing in 1996 put the blow-torch on young people’s hopes. The halving of Capital Gains Tax in 1999 added fuel to [...]

The Australian Mr Michael Janda’s advocacy of land value taxation as a means of lowering the tax burden on both workers and entrepreneurs is well advised. As Adam Smith recognized, there are only three factors of production – land, labour and capital – and only one of them does not flee or stop working or [...]

Crikey Re. “The crisis in our housing markets” (yesterday, item 2). David Imber is right to point to the self-seeking publicity from the real estate industry. I’d like to add that the emotional term “home” and the more neutral one “house” disguise the fact that the largest component in domestic property prices is often the [...]