Australia has a new population policy.

The Guardian’s Katharine Murphy provides a rundown.

OK, so we want immigrants to settle into our regions. However, there’s not one decent idea to attract them there. We have to try to force them to the regions, and once there, trick them into staying.

Few noticed the population drift from the mainland to Tasmania where property was cheaper in 2004. Or, the current Sydney to Melbourne drift.

People will move to where land is cheaper during booms, selling down from a dearer city to a cheaper one in order to cash up a little.

The principle of land value taxation, argued here for economic reasons, would also act naturally to generate social movement, of migrants or otherwise, into the regions where land is cheaper and where the land tax would be significantly less.

Makes sense, if other taxes are reduced concomitantly and , of course, “Australia’s Future Tax System” recommended a significant land tax in order to abolish more than 100 counter-productive taxes.

Ain’t nothing counter-productive about a decent decentralising land value tax.