Melbourne City Council is wringing its hands again over developer land vagrancy – prime sites deliberately held vacant or with disused, dangerous buildings to assist developer lobbying of government for rezoning or advantageous building permits. The issue last hit the...
In March last year, the NSW Supreme Court set aside the NSW Office of State Revenue’s assessment for land tax in 2009-13 on certain lands at Terranora in the Tweed Valley held by Metricon. The developer bought the $60m aggregation to subdivide for residential use. It...
The federal Treasurer Scott Morrison used parliament yesterday to fire an extraordinary broadside at Australia’s banking cartel. Conservative governments rarely indulge in the public thrashing of such major supporters of the status quo. Morrison and the Turnbull...
The NSW government is reneging on the small, high quality reform of funding emergency services with a land charge instead of the very bad levy on fire insurance. Blue-rinse dragons of Mosman saw red - they will be paying $500 a year on median land values of $1.84...
by Peter Meakin South African Constitutional Property Rights Foundation Will Minister Gigaba encourage the trafficking of South Africa's unemployed to Mozambique? Realistically, the best chance for South Africa’s 8.5 million jobless is a single bus ticket to Maputo....
Governments make token moves in the right direction The Federal government announcement of a vacancy tax on foreign investors could be construed as pure populism. Foreign investors constitute some 11% of all residential property purchases. Barely 3% of those...
Cameron Kushner of CoreLogic has offered an interesting analysis of property tax bases in Taxation Revenue From Property Continues to Climb. Tax bases reveal more about a country’s future prospects than Treasury forecasts and economist sooth-saying. Where and how it...
Last night’s federal budget included a fat gift to downsizing homeowners over 65 who can now put up to $300,000 from their house sale into superannuation, allowing many to keep their (part) pension and, most importantly, unlimited free healthcare. This stunning...
Preamble Prosper Australia welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the 2017- 2018 Victorian budget as a leading non-government economic research organisation highlighting the political-economy of land, natural resource and monopoly rents. This submission focusses on...
Lindsay David and Philip Soos at LF Economics demonstrate real rents are falling across the country, except in Hobart. This is only possible with falling wages, weak demand and excess housing supply. Little landlords have no compunction about evicting bolshie tenants...