Latest News & Commentary
The Great Australian Nightmare
by Brendan Coates Economic Policy Program Director, Grattan Institute This is an edited version. Full transcript availble from the Grattan intstitute. Upstream from the Great Australian Nightmare of worsening housing affordability – and all the downstream consequences...
Speculation, housing supply and prices
A summary of recent research Speculation: it’s a Georgist obsession shared by few others. Landbanking, flipping, vacancy, delayed development, staged releases – how does any of this matter? Speculative behaviour tells of the market at work, allocating capital and...
How to tax superprofits: a lesson from the sunshine state
Last year on budget night, Queensland caught the coal industry off-guard, announcing three new upper-level tiers to the state’s royalties regime. Queensland’s previous royalty schedule had only two brackets: seven per cent up to $100 a tonne, then 15 per cent for...
NSW quits, Victoria hits
It’s been a big week for property tax. On Sunday we learned the new NSW government was extending stamp duty concessions for first home buyers and will introduce legislation this week to scrap the former government’s ‘opt-in’ stamp duty to land tax scheme. We don’t...
Submission to the Victorian Legislative Council Inquiry into Land Transfer Duty Fees
Prosper's submission to the Victorian Legislative Council Inquiry into Land Transfer Duty Fees reflects our evolving thinking around the core motivations for the reform. 14 April 2023 Prosper Australia is an independent research institute focused on the management of...
Melbourne’s Pandemic Rental Dynamics: the limits of faster housing supply to tackle affordability
Prosper's latest report sounds a cautionary note for policymakers placing market supply at the centre of affordable housing policy. Report author, Dr Tim Helm, Prosper’s Director of Research and Policy, described the report, entitled “Melbourne’s pandemic rental...
Henry George & The Science of Political Economy
Friday May 5th, 2023 6:30pm School of Political Economy, Level 1, 49 Smith Street. Free event. All welcome. Register at Eventbrite Henry George (1839-1897) rose to fame as a social reformer and economist amid the industrial and intellectual turbulence of the late...
Want to know the truth about property taxes? Try these facts
The confrontation over Victoria’s Social and Affordable Housing Levy may have been short lived when the proposed levy was quickly dropped after conniptions by the property lobby but the shibboleth that property taxes represent a large proportion of the cost of buying a house is economic propaganda that just won’t die.
Pandemic rental dynamics: an (un)natural experiment in excess supply
Tuesday 21st March The Kelvin Club, 14-30 Melbourne Pl, Melbourne VIC 3000 map 5:30pm Join us in-person we present findings from our latest research note - Pandemic rental dynamics: an (un)natural experiment in excess supply by Jesse Hermans and Tim Helm. You’d...
What if land markets are monopolies?
Planning deregulation, especially rezoning, has been repeatedly touted as a key policy solution to Australia’s eye watering house prices. The story goes that prices remain high because the supply of new dwellings in accessible, desirable locations has not kept pace...
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