aquascoot wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 7:01am:

I agree. The minimum wage is not the problem, it's the escalation in house prices with little being done to stop it. Investors have too many unnecessary concessions. In 2003 the Howard government asked the Productivity Commission to investigate housing affordability. Despite that, nothing has been done to address the issue by three different governments.

CGT must also have no concessions; tax the profits the same as other income. The concessional rate of CGT only encourages speculation in the housing market and accelerates the wealth divide.

We need to look at other factors as well that affect home affordability. Limited land releases. Limited job opportunities in regional areas. Stamp duty. First home buyers' grant.

BlOoDy RiPpEr wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 8:40am:

That is not a productive measure and is a breach of human rights.

Quote:

No need to ban ownership of Australian residential property by foreign residents. Just start taxing them properly. A good start is doing away the concessional rate of capital gains tax. There is no good reason to retain it for foreign investors, and little reason to retain it for everyone else. If foreign investors earn profit in Australia, make them pay the full rate of tax. No concessions. No exceptions.

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It would take a while for any effects to be felt. Any measures to calm the escalation in house prices must avoid creating the problem of negative equity.

The main problem with housing affordability is that Australia is still built around the geography of the nineteenth century, with five major cities. A couple of major regional centres also exist like the Gold Coast and Newcastle, but these are exceptional. Canberra is also exceptional. About half of all Australians live within 50 km of one of five major cities. This would have worked fine in 1890 when the Australian population was a few million, but it's now outdated. It is ridiculous that in a country with a land area of 7.7 million square kilometres, half of all people are crowded into less than half of a percent of the landmass, despite Australia's cities being quite spread out by world standards.

We need to get people out of our capitals. We need more cities. More places with a ready supply of jobs. More hubs of industry and commerce. More places where people are willing to live.

We should choose some regional areas to become new cities with a population of around 100,000 to 250,000 people. We could choose an existing town, or even buy a few unproductive farms adjacent to good infrastructure (road, rail, power and water) and found new greenfield cities. Encourage companies to relocate with generous tax benefits.

Encouraging development of the north of Australia is one option. This is a more expensive option because it would require tens of billions in new infrastructure.

Any strategy for this kind of regional development needs to be a bipartisan approach. This would be a long-term project, potentially over decades. It can't be subject to the whims of partisan politics.

BlOoDy RiPpEr wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 8:40am:


Gawd. . . . . there are ppl here that were born in pommyland and came here with their parents because in those days you didnt need a passport/visa or something when you were a baby. You wanna deport them to somewhere they have never been?

SOB

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 11:14am:

What areas are these? Capital cities, mostly. See my other post on this.

aquascoot wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 7:01am:


This!! enough with rising mining wages, working at mcdonalds is not meant to be a life time profession, your contributing very little to the nation. Its meant for a kids to get some extra money after school hours..

I fear the day, when our young can drop out of school and just work at mcdonalds earning enough for a second home and a personal jet.

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 8:37am:


Maybe then they should start their own small business, this is why we need to teach Entrepreneurial skills to our children so when they grow up and there is no jobs or they feel unhappy about the amount they are getting payed, they can go out and create their own business.

Pantheon wrote on Mar 25^th, 2014 at 11:38am:



Kind of, but I don't see it as something that could be 'taught'. 

I think our obsession with "teaching" everything as opposed to letting people learn is why people are so straitjacketed.

Formal education is for drones.  Entrepreneurs just get stuck in and do it.