Portland (pop. 10,000) remains seriously underdeveloped. While the rest of the state has grown by leaps and bounds, Portland sleeps. Its laggard status should be a matter of considerable concern to all Victorians.
BLOG: land tax
Be bold, Mr Baillieu: abolish Stamp Duty and Payroll Tax
photo credit: djking To win the election, the new Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu pledged to phase in reductions in Stamp Duty by fifty per cent on real estate transactions under $600,000 for first home buyers. This is a very modest proposal. Mr Baillieu’s incoming...
Melbourne’s secret plan
photo credit: Lucia. . . A secret map of Melbourne’s transport plans for the next 30 years was published in The Age yesterday. Doubts were raised about its authenticity (weakly, unconvincingly) by the Victorian government. Average householders may shrug, but this is a...
Treasury to Gillard: “Fix Housing.”
photo credit: itmpa Last week Treasury made public its Red Book – the economic advice it gives to the incoming government. In it, Treasury lays out a big, bold reform agenda. On housing, the Red Book is scathing: “Access to adequate housing affects all Australians...
Australia’s AAA credit rating affirmed. How’s yours?
i photo credit: Susanica The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's overnight reaffirmed Australia's AAA rating. Donald Horne’s 1964 label ‘The Lucky Country’ was ironic, yet fits our unique position as the western world endures its worst financial crisis since...
Ending the Fire Services Levy – almost excellent
At the moment, Victoria’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade and Country Fire Authority are funded by the Fire Services Levy, a charge added to fire insurance. But the FSL gives a free ride to uninsured property owners – they don’t pay for the level of fire cover provided....
Did you remember to sell the house today?
Prof. Ross Garnaut gave the Hamer Oration at Melbourne University on Thursday. He pointed out that Australia has not experienced a recession for 17 years, a record for The Lucky Country. Such a period of unbroken growth is not just an Australian record, it is a world...
History of Debt and Property from the Ancient East
Michael Hudson As first published in The Invention of Enterprise: Entrepreneurship from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern Times, David S. Landes, Joel Mokyr, and William J. Baumol, eds., (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010):8-39. Also on Michael's website. A...
Victoria’s Transport Plan a No-Brainer
photo credit: Schaffner Sometimes the ignorance of experts makes my blood boil. Why can’t they do the arithmetic, the sums plainly before them? The Victorian Transport Plan will cost $38 billion and produce benefits of $180 billion, according to a state-commissioned...
Australia’s Needless Foreign Borrowing
photo credit: Adam_T4 Michael Hudson and Shann Turnbull* Confronted by the global financial crisis that is burying foreign economies deeper in debt deflation each month, Australia needs to protect itself – indeed, to liberate itself from as many costs and...