Latest News & Commentary

Judgement Day arrives for illegal foreign buyers

reposted from Macrobusiness by Leith van Onselen Today is 1 December, which means that the amnesty on illegal foreign buyers of Australian residential real estate is over and the Government’s new penalty regime comes into effect. From today, a foreign national that...

An obituary

RIP Australia   Australia was not overrun and defeated. It became dead at heart, and the rot and canker spread to its extremities. Federally, proportional representation elected only the Senate, because rent-seekers who divided and ruled the nation charged that...

Love to hear Bob Dylan sing this

Blowin' in the wind Why must we be fined with tax, for workin’ for the nation? Yes, ‘n’ how much time will it take before … we’ll quit our occupation? Why won’t we turn where the tax breaks are, in real ’state speculation? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the...

We the Selectorati

Some advice Once you've understood that you’re only on this planet for a short period, certain things should become clear to you. Namely, there’s only a few people who are life's winners; the vast majority will die losers. Whilst workers and capitalists are both...

Land Tax Benefits Build

The chorus continues to grow for the inclusion of Land Taxes in the national tax debate. Economics editor for The Age Ross Gittins advocates his support for Land Tax in How to fix everything: Why? Partly because GST is a regressive tax, whereas land tax is...

Economic depressions 101.0

Economic depression for dummies Let’s say labour joins with capital and land to produce wealth, and that the locational rent of land arises as a by-product, simply from the existence of the surrounding community and its infrastructure. Say, for some reason or other,...

Reform Agenda Machinations

Reform Agenda Machinations

Published as The Planned Obsolescence of the Public Interest in Online Opinion A fascinating power play continues in the debate over vertical fiscal imbalance. The strategic intent is prevalent from federal to local politics, where the health of the public revenue...

Value Capture Variants

Last Thursday Catherine Cashmore and I addressed the Select Committee into the Scrutiny of Government Budget Measures. Read the Hansard transcription. We felt it important to put on the public record the various value capture mechanisms with commentary on their...

Subscribe to our newsletter

Be the first to hear about our latest research, campaigns and upcoming events.

Subscribe

Support our work to shift tax away from the productive parts of our economy and towards unearned streams of income.

The power of revenue policy to create a fairer and more sustainable economy is significantly underestimated, and this is what we seek to change.