Land banking

by | Mar 12, 2010 | Letters to the Editor, Talking Points

You’ve got to love real estate spruikers. They are so consistent and always so wrong. David Morrell purports to be a buyers’ advocate. On 5th March in The Age he was saying how you can’t go wrong with “land banking” in Toorak. Well maybe....

Opportunity has a name: it’s called land

by | Mar 10, 2010 | Talking Points

photo credit: Ravages by Gavin R. Putland If the Australian economy has come through the Global Financial Crisis in such fine shape, why do we have an official unemployment rate over 5%, and a real unemployment rate two or three times higher? Why aren’t there...

Vote now for a fairer tax system!

by | Mar 10, 2010 | Commentary

The Rudd Government has reviewed the tax system. The Henry Review came out strongly in favour of capturing economic rents for the common good. Read our analysis of the report here and here. The Rudd Government has written off any serious reforms to issues relevant to...

Hudson: Wall St Moves in for the Kill

by | Mar 2, 2010 | Commentary

photo credit: elodole MICHAEL HUDSON Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wrote an op-ed in The New York Times yesterday, February 16 outlining how to put the U.S. economy on rations. Not in those words, of course. Just the opposite: If the government hadn’t bailed...

GAIC fails to sprawl

by | Feb 24, 2010 | Commentary

The Brumby government’s ill-fated Growth Areas Infrastructure Tax was defeated in the Victorian Senate last evening. This spells the danger of poor land policy. Why did they attempt to charge $95,000 per hectare as a flat fee? Why wasn’t this...