More on the 'Clean Feed', Land Tax for Australia, Writing & Gaming

[tcpip]

The "clean feed" legislation continues to be treated with the contempt it deserves. Australia's largest ISP, iiNet, has signed to up trials to explictly show how broken it is with Michael Malone describing Ministry Conroy as "The worst Communications Minister we've had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed", describing the proposal as "useless, inefficient and ineffectual". Watch the minister squirm like a stuck pig from some serious questions from Greens Senator, Scott Ludlam. hasimir provides an excellent EFA analysis of past and present proposals. A much cleaner feed has been achieved with a provider responsible for 75% of the world's spam knocked offline.

Let me go on my favourite economic rant for a minute: Land tax improves productivity. Land tax increases rates of employment. Land tax increases the quantity and quality of buildings. Land tax cuts the cost of goods and services. Land tax reduces tax bill of workers and capitalists. Land tax reduces the environmental footprint. Land tax reduces tax evasion. I am prepared to explain to anyone who cares to ask why this is so; and now Australia, courtesy of Treasury Secretary Dr. Ken Henry is about to adopt it with some gusto.

Went to Kerry Greenwood's booklaunch for Murder on a Midsummer Night in Yarraville this morning, which was well attended; the Santa and Elves acapella advertisement was amusing. On other writing topics, I've had a slower past few days on NaNoWriMo; now up to c30,000 words. Have also written a review for Middle Earth Role Playing for RPG.net which should go up soon. Playing MERP on Friday night, will be running RuneQuest on Sunday night, have created new scenes for Powers & Perils and HeroQuest PBeMs (none of which, regrettably count towards NaNoWriMo).

Comments

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I think you know what my... predilections... are regarding the economy, but I'm quite (favourably) intrigued by this land tax business, and I'll be watching this closely. Thanks for the link.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

When almost every economist for the past three hundred years has been recommending the same thing, eventually it may actually sink in with the politicians.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

I can see the argument for wider use of land tax, but it would screw the state governments again.

By and large if it is a Commonwealth tax, the states can't use it...

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the states have had the right to apply land tax since the middle of the Menzies government. They've proven themselves not exactly competent in the matter and have been particularly subject to lobbying to vested interests on the matter. Arthur Calwell remarked that there would be "happy days" when it is restored to the Commonwealth's statute books..

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

Disclaimer: I've worked for three of the State Revenue departments in Australia, although it has been a while now.

In terms of implementation and collection (using whatever legislation is in place), I'd say that the SRDs are actually quite good at it.

I'll grant that there may be problems at the legislative/policy level but there would be enormous electoral resistance to (to use a WA example) removing the exemption on the principle place of residence.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree that the implementation and collection is excellent, no problems with that at all... It is indeed the legislative/policy level that I am referring to. State governments simply do not have the political resources to stand up to powerful lobby groups such as mining companies. Heck, the federal government is going to find it hard enough...

[crankynick.livejournal.com]

The WA example isn't a typical one, though - when the Gallop government tried to implement it they were a first term government that had just sort of fallen over the line, bringing in a land tax in their (I think) first budget in the middle of a housing bubble.

It was, from memory, only going to apply to houses worth more than $1 million - but at the time everyone in the northern suburbs (where Labor won government) was seeing ridiculous property growth and thought their shitty four bedroom single-brick on a postage stamp block was going to be worth a million bucks in a year or so.

The back bench arced up, Cabinet's spine went to jelly, and it disappeared off the agenda - but I think it would be wrong to read more than that into it.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

I wasn't there for that.

What I remember though is that the residential exemption is the biggest single exemption from Land Tax in WA.

There are others - charitable, education, etc - but the WA legislation has always been set up as an "all land is taxable unless stated otherwise" principle so pretty much all commercial properties are already subject to it.

[horngirl.livejournal.com]

Ooh, lemme know if the new Kerry Greenwood is any good. And we need to organise curry too!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

From my reading so far it's pretty good. I do appreciate the attention to detail for "lived history".

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

I'd love to hear a more thorough explanation of the whole land tax bit. Are we talking about, more or less, a commonwealth system?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes we are..

[forwrathandruin.livejournal.com]

How do you go about implementing this? Do you just campaign with your local representatives and hope that the people are willing to get behind such a measure?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Well, in this case it looks like it's going to be adopted via recommendations in the public service... Which is a good thing because the public have shown themselves to be utterly ignorant and suffering from self-interested myopia on this issue..

[taavi.livejournal.com]

Now now. We never win through contempt for the public. We save that for when we sit around in oak-panelled rooms with brandy and cigars afterwards.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know.. It's just that I'm sure Joe Public loves the idea of the environment and steps to cut global warming, but when they discover that means that they will have to send their kids to school via public transport because the price of petrol internalises external costs they'll crack it...

[omnot.livejournal.com]

Regarding Clean Feed; I think some protest stickers and t-shirts could be handy. The idea that springs to mind is to have them read: "403 Forbidden" or a longer version "403 Forbidden: You don't have permission to access * on this server." But I can't think of something definitive to put where the wildcard '*' is, and the wildcard doesn't quite make sense there.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Nice, I'd buy that...

It would also make an appropriate day of protest for webadmins..

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

As I was for the protest over the "Great Firewall of China" with Amnesty, I'll be buggered if I support the same thing here. All concerned parents need to do if they're worried about Internet Porn is supervise their kids better (like, say, put the PC in the lounge room).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*nods* Make sure you tell your local MP this...

[hasimir.livejournal.com]

Nice link, good to see iiBorg are using their powers for good.

By the way, I just made another post on one of the more technical aspects of the policy. One of the nasty little things buried in the report and one likely to cause a lot of fuss when the businesses of Australia realise the implications.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is going to be a huge issue... And of course, if they drop the https packet filtering it's dead as a dog anyway... Once again, the Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it..

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

Post on Slashdot here on the topic.

Even better though is Michael's actual post on Whirlpool.

Knowing MM, he's really really fired up about this and the politicians should be worried if he's intending to get into their playpool.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh nice, thanks for the Whirlpool link... Yeah, I would be worried too if MM wasn't on our side :)

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

The youtube of Conroy squirming has been deleted. :(

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Seems to be there now...

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

So it does. That is odd...

[taavi.livejournal.com]

Been meaning to ask you a question about land tax and environmental footprints. Say I'm a farmer with land that is quasi marginal (like a lot of australia). If I have to pay an increased tax for my use of that land, doesn't that create an incentive for me to use the most environmentally exploitative methods possible, if that will generate higher productivity in the short term, until the land is exhausted, and then let it revert to the commonwealth? I can see the applicability of the georgist land tax in an urban environment, but I think it could have perverse effects in our land-extensive rural sector; it doesn't provide an incentive for husbandry, light use of fragile soils, etc.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Good question.

A general principle to be applied in these circumstances is usufruct; so if the land is damaged by a person's use then they are liable for the damage they caused.

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

A better question is does one pay land tax on commonwealth leased land? A lot of graziers (particularly on coastal lands) are actually on leases.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

They get a seriously discounted land tax. Strictly speaking the annual rate of land tax should be roughly the same as the unimproved site rental value... Pastoral leases however are dirt cheap in comparison.