I recommend a peep at the ABC’s series “The Homes That Built Australia“.

We get to see the increasingly mounting problem of commodifying our homes for speculative purposes. Promoted as a security “for mum and dad investors”, Australian property is said to represent “real estate markets”. However, without a significant land rental/ land tax on all properties which poses the question “Do I want to live here, or am I speculating?”, can Australian real estate be a genuine market?

A real market would penalise holdouts and speculators and reward those who need to house themselves and their families, affordably.

Were currently seeing “mum and dad investors’ having to leave “the market” in Melbourne because of the Victorian state land tax, but it remains insufficient levels to make housing affordable for all.

Australia’s Future Tax System (the Henry Tax Review) called for an impressive tax reform that would have only four taxes: income tax; the GST; an all-in land tax and; a mining tax. Some 130 other bothersome taxes would be abolished as a trade-off for introduction of the latter two.

Curiously, there are calls for a new inquiry into tax reform in Australia. Why? That’s probably, so we may skirt around the recommendations of the Henry Tax Review and extend the GST – a regressive sales tax, similar to an income tax having no threshold and which doesn’t bear upon foreign investors in Australian real estate.