Latest News & Commentary
Housing Media Wars
photo credit: chrisjohnbeckett With the housing bubble accelerating each day, sometimes you wonder if it is ever going to pop. Tim Colebatch has written a number of key articles of recent, including this one on negative gearing pointing out that investors now account...
Restrict negative gearing to new construction
photo credit: aphasiafilms Letter to the Editor David Collyer Balwyn THANK YOU, Tim Colebatch, for your clear-eyed review of our hopelessly distorted housing market (''Housing at these prices will leave us all a heavy debt to bear'', Comment, 23/3). Your solution - to...
Petition for Prosperity
photo credit: CarbonNYC Media Release “We have the means at hand to liberate the citizens of our great country from their current financial difficulties,” Prosper Australia’s Karl Fitzgerald said today. “The answer lies in reforming our tax system. A major petition to...
Kansas City sees the light!
photo credit: CoolValley A major tax battle is underway in Kansas City, Missouri. A petition to eliminate the city’s earnings tax worth $200 million a year has opened minds to the introduction of Land Tax. Read The Kansas City Star’s excellent analysis
Time for Flat-Rate Land Tax
photo credit: mugley Letter to the Editor David Barkly Nunawading Speculators have excelled themselves with their land banking. A realistic flat-rate land tax would discourage speculation. It would be equitable because land values rise due to community action,...
Land Bankers Clean Up On Misinformation
Huge land bank puts squeeze on buyers 'We release land in a staged manner to meet demand because it would not benefit anybody to flood the market" said Stockland's General Manager Andrew Whitson. Wouldn't benefit anybody Andrew? Well perhaps it should be re-written as...
Triple the Supply Side Squeeze
Consider these three points: Property developers have openly stated they are reducing the supply of property to the market in order to massage land banking profits: While some already owe more than their home is worth, the result of prices initially boosted by first...
Land banking
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. Land banking is the quite...
Opportunity has a name: it’s called land
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 enough...
Vote now for a fairer tax system!
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...
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