Prosper Australia

Canberra Times March 17, 2013 Christopher Erskine (Time for a new lease on life, March 9, p7) is correct that it was the writings of American political economist Henry George that inspired Canberra’s founders to put in place a leasehold system of land tenure. It was envisaged by many, including Walter Burley Griffin, that land [...]

  by Philip Soos Escalating housing costs have, of course, received much attention as both prices and rents increased faster than incomes and inflation over the last decade. In this vein, property research firm RP Data launched a monthly report called Buy vs. Rent, providing a comparison of housing costs across Australia’s suburbs. Recent results show that in [...]

From the Canberra Times 5 April 2012. Your article “Capital’s housing prices highest in the country” (April 3, p1) was missing one very important word – land. As we move toward Canberra’s centenary celebrations it is time to reflect on the great wedge that is driving an ever increasing gap between the privileged and unprivileged [...]

photo credit: Steve – wants a job at Chester Zoo MELBOURNE and CANBERRA:- Australians had high hopes the Tax Forum would herald the end of taxes that distort and diminish economic activity as Ken Henry recommended. Sadly, these hopes have been dashed, says Prosper Australia. “Citizens are taxed too much – especially the income tax [...]

Dr Gavin Putland of the Land Values Research Group drives a stake through a vampire heart in the Letters page of today’s Australian Financial Review Joanne Seve (Letters, August 5) regurgitates the property lobby’s favourite untruth, namely that land tax is passed on to tenants. In its crudest form, this argument expects the reader to [...]

Melbourne City Council is selling lanes to developers, according to The Age today. It makes a pretty penny, too, having pocketed $1.2 million from the sale of part of three lanes in the last 12 months alone. The article sparked an intense debate on the newspaper’s blog.  Sales are energetically supported by citizens disgusted by [...]

photo credit: jcarter   The Commonwealth of Australia was built on the sound principle natural resources are part of every Australian’s endowment. The Henry Tax Review recommended and the Rudd government has accepted a new tax system for mining that builds on this idea.  The Super Profits Resource Tax (SPRT) provides the community a share [...]

photo credit: anarchosyn The Henry Tax Review’s highlighting of Land Tax as a policy direction is a welcome and encouraging development, says Prosper Australia. “This is THE tool to liberate the people of Australia from their current financial difficulties,” Prosper Australia’s Karl Fitzgerald said today.  “Consider the enormous economic benefits this reform offers. “Taxing land [...]

Gavin Putland The ACT’s Land Rent Act, with promised savings of 79% compared to the standard mortgage-based system of home ownership, took effect on July 1. This is an innovative housing affordability policy. Here’s what I wrote about it a week before it became law. I make the following assumptions (which do not seem to [...]

A grasp of economic rent is vital to understanding geoism and the path to social justice and environmental sanity. Short definitions are helpful but limited – the return to privilege; a free ride at society’s expense; unearned increment; excess profits that monopolists reap in the absence of competition; income derived from assets that cannot be [...]