Who Owns the Land?

I've never been a communist or a socialist, although some of my ideas certainly border on socialism and not my usual right-wing self. One such idea is that about land ownership. I believe that ALL land should belong to the State.

Now that's a brave comment.

In my scheme, instead of someone buying a block of land for their house or business and paying for it, they'd simply get a 99 year lease (or some other period lease) from the government agency controlling land development. The government would charge a nominal rental fee annually to contribute to national taxation.

If the tennant of the land built something on it or otherwise improved it, the ability to transfer the lease would exist, but it would be a government-authorised transaction. Perhaps a slightly higher rental fee would be charged for improvements.

Land acquisition would be on a first-come-first-served basis.

The State (or governments in this sense) has perpetuity, whereas you and I die. It seems to me that it would be more sensible to have an enduring entity in charge of all the land in a country rather than have a false economy built on supply and demand of something that noone can really own.

What do you think?

Australian Human Rights Bill

There is a minority of people who believe Australia should have a Human Rights Bill. We don't. Australia has a plethora of acts of Parliament that provide for our rights and in some cases, our responsibilities.

Every time the Australian Government enacts social engineering legislation, it shoots itself in the foot. For example, the Native Title Act and the Aboriginal Land Rights Act have resulted in the lock out of millions of hectares of land that cannot now be used for housing development. In many places, house prices and rents have gone through the roof because there is no land available for development.

As a result of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, the Australian Government has purchased dozens of functional, profit-generating cattle stations and turned them over to indigenous groups. In nearly all cases, the cattle died through neglect and the land now lies unused and unprofitable with the inhabitants still a drain on the welfare system.

You can bet your life that if we introduce an unwanted Human Rights Bill, there will be unforseen negative consequences.

At the end of the day, the only rights any of us have are those our society wishes to allow us. Australians live in a free, democratic society and there are many other things we could focus our attention on than an unnecessary Bill of Rights.