Nelson Yap at the Australian Property Journal writes: SECRET companies are allowing illicit and corrupt money to flood into Sydney and Australia’s real estate market. Transparency International’s new report Doors Wide Open: Corruption and Real Estate in Key Markets has…
The Cohen family, holders of The Block Arcade in Collins Street Melbourne, must meet a massive rise in State Land Tax after the Valuer-General’s biennial land revaluation. Their 2017 tax bill is $450,000, up from $30,000 last year. According to…
Peter Martin, Australia’s clearest economic writer, has turned his icy gaze to Stamp Duty. This vile tax causes real harm to all of us and begs to be struck from the statute books. Yes, it is a state tax. Yes,…
What did Marcus Aurelius mean when he said “Poverty is the mother of crime”? Surely he wasn’t trying to justify crime? The vast majority of poor people keep on ‘the straight and narrow’ without turning to crime? No, he wasn’t justifying…
Matthew Stevens, the AFR’s kindly mouthpiece for big miners, is today promoting a range of very bad ideas that suit his, ahem, audience. The article is paywalled from sheer embarrassment. He lauds the political destruction of WA Nationals’ leader Bernard…
Craig Emerson, principal architect of Australia’s Petroleum Resource Rent Tax, is out in the AFR today fighting for good taxes and sound economics. For thirty years, the PRRT had been a successful revenue-sharing device, delivering well over $33 billion to…
Well, it certainly looked like a market today: all those people assembled at the auction, wanting to see what that four bedroom, two bathroom brick veneer house with a double garage was worth. Near new; attractive and efficient layout; sitting…
The NSW government is reforming how it funds fire services, removing the charge on fire insurances and introducing a land-based levy. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet says: “Eliminating the old (Emergency Services Levy) is expected to reduce insurance costs on residential…
Louis Christopher of SQM Research – aka Black Dragon – has seen through the maze of deceit to properly identify the national interest and yesterday published Five Solutions to Housing Unaffordability Crisis. His prescription is simple: cut immigration, grow in…
The UN Special Rapporteur’s Report into the financialisation of housing delivers a damning indictment on the worldwide commodification of housing. The report investigates the state of housing globally, the current economic policy trends to control and shape investment, and the…