With issues of great moment up for debate at the Labor Party’s annual conference this weekend, now that Ken Henry has put land tax back on the national agenda, the time may be ripe for ALP-inclined people to consider how the land tax plank came to disappear from Labor’s platform.
It was written out of the Labor platform in 1964 by party secretary Cyril Wyndham.
It was never voted out by the membership, as required.
When the federal land tax was abolished in 1952 by Robert Gordon Menzies, Labor’s Arthur Calwell had promised to restore it when Labor returned to office.
But land tax was ‘forgotten’. It was uncomfortable. And the 1% have never had a better time of it.