The SMH carries an article on Saturdays front page lamenting the power the state of NSW is giving itself in regards to bipassing property rights.
THE State Government plans to give its agencies and councils power to compulsorily acquire private land to re-sell to developers at a profit - or, if they choose, at a reduced price so the developers make even more money.
Legal authorities describe as “quite remarkable” a section of new planning laws flagged by the Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, to acquire land by force to onsell to private developers.
I agree with the concerns raised in the article. However I do find odd the notion that governments stealing your land and selling it is somehow worse than stealing your land and keeping it. And is there really any distinction between stealing your land so a private for profit road can be built for the public good or stealing your land so a private for profit shopping mall can be built for the public good? In one sense I think there is a distinction in so far as new road corridors are not easily or readily created through private market means, whilst shopping centres are. However the key legal constraint on governments (at all tiers) really ought to be a proper and transparent assessment process of the public benefit of such a forced acquisition which is open to legal challenge, and a system of just compensation.
As many of our regular readers probably already know, some of us here at the Australian Libertarian Society are also affiliated with the Liberty and Democracy Party (LDP). I stood as a senate candidate for the LDP on the NSW ticket at the 2007 federal election and I was a member of the National Executive up until January 2008. The LDP is a moderate party of reform with a core libertarian philosophy.
Peter Whelan (current LDP President) has asked me to help promote the NSW division of the LDP as it works to build up party membership in NSW. A lot of people may not realise that registering a political party is a very onerous task and membership is a key regulatory hurdle. A party can only contest elections if it is registered in the relevant juristiction. Whilst the LDP is now registered for ACT elections and for Federal elections it is not yet registered for NSW elections. So if you’re not already a member of the LDP and you would like to see the LDP on the ballot at the next election then joining the party is an easy way to lend a hand. Being a member need not entail any effort at all other than confirming your membership as and when the relevant electoral commission asks you. You can even join for free.
The NSW division meets every third Thursday of the month. You can join the party on the evening. The details for the next meeting are on the LDP blog:-
Medicare should be reformed so it is more like HECS. When you front up to the doctor or hospital for medical services then in order to pay the medical bill you should have the option of whipping out some cash, whipping out the MASTERCARD or whipping out the Medicare card. Medicare should be a credit fascility much like MASTERCARD or VISA. The only difference should be that the Medicare debt should be repaid via the tax system in the same way that HECS debts are repaid. In fact the debt could be administered by the same bureaucracy.
Such a reform would ensure that medical consumers seek value for money. However it would still provide access for those with financial difficulties. Medicare should be regarded as a payment system not an insurance system. Insurance should be entirely optional.
Socialism and its near cousin Communism were the scourge of the 20th century and whilst its influence as an ideology is no longer as disastrous as it once was, it is perhaps more insidious today. Wikipedia in its article on Socialism introduces it as follows:-
Socialism refers to group of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community. This control may be either direct—exercised through popular collectives such as workers’ councils—or indirect—exercised on behalf of the people by the state. As an economic system, socialism is often characterized by state, worker, or community ownership of the means of production, goals which have been attributed to, and claimed by, a number of political parties and governments throughout history.
This definition fits with my understanding of the term. The key characteristic being that property is controlled communally not privately. In the worst case the community seeks to exert control over the very body and being of individuals. Generally it just involves pushing people around.
Lindsay Tanner writing in The Australian recently, seeks to divorce what he calls producerism from socialism. Here is part of what he says:-
Some would call this approach mercantilism. Others wrongly regard it as a core component of socialism. I see it as a distinct phenomenon in its own right that can best be described as producerism.
Producerism exists wherever the state implements regulatory and ownership arrangements that favour or protect particular producer groups at the expense of society as a whole. Tariffs, monopolies and other distorting regulatory regimes are the most obvious examples of the producerist philosophy at work.
So for Lindsay Tanner community control of property and wealth distribution is only socialism if it is done for the good of society as a whole. In other words Tanner believes socialism is not socialism unless it is utilitarianism. If community control of property and wealth distribution is done for narrow sectional interests then Tanner calls it producerism and regards it as a different animal to socialism. Socialism according to Tanner is something done for the greater good and if it is not for the greater good then it’s not socialism. A cynical libertarian might suggest that this is like saying that socialism is not socialism.
I don’t agree with the idea that socialism, or community control of property, is routinely good for society as a whole. However if clarifying socialism in this way allows Tanner and the ALP to conclude that we need lower taxes, lower tariffs, less corporate welfare and deregulation of markets and prices then I hope they spend quite a bit of time clarifying socialism to the mass of socialists out there.
I found this picture care of facebook. It shows a recent student protest (19th of March) in favour of retaining freedom of association and in favour of repudiating compulsory collectivism. Well done to all those involved in this event defending voluntary student unionism (VSU).
Bernanke and the four Fed governors voted yesterday to become creditors to Bear Stearns Cos., a securities firm that isn’t a bank, by invoking a law that hasn’t been used since the 1960s. Three days earlier, the Fed said it would swap Treasury notes on its balance sheet for privately issued mortgage-backed securities held by Wall Street firms.
“It’s a re-drawing of the relationship of the Federal Reserve with the rest of the financial system,” said Vincent Reinhart, former director of the Division of Monetary Affairs at the Board. Risks of so-called moral hazard, where firms will now come to count on bailouts by a federal agency, “are considerable,” he said.
I don’t think taxpayers should bailout failing businesses and I don’t make an exception for banks. However if a central bank is going to offer finance to bail out a business such as this then I think they should do so only on the condition that they receive an equity stake (which they should offload on the market at some later point) and that the board sack the CEO. This would at least mitigate some of the moral hazard.
Over in John Quiggins land of Social Democrats, resident commenter Ikonoclast takes a jab at Liberal Democracy.
Ikonoclast:-
To simultaneously support democratic government and minimalist government is a patent nonsense. I can only assume therefore that anyone espousing such a position either does not truly support democratic government or is blind to the inherent contradiction of their position.
Week by week since the start of the year our blog here at the Australian Libertarian Society has had a steady increase in the number of visitors.
Obviously some people comment a lot at this blog but no doubt some people just come to read the articles and see what others have to say. I thought it would be fun to see what our audience profile looks like. So I’ve prepared a simple short poll that lets you tell us a little about yourself. Feel free to be more expansive in the comments section if you wish. In particular it would be nice to get a quick hello from any regular readers that usually don’t comment.
John Quiggin has spawned a good discussion about the poor performance of financial credit rating agencies at his website.
This produces some absurd results. For example, Ambac, a mortgage insurer whose shares have lost 92 per cent of their value in the past year, is rated at AA by Fitch. By contrast, Greece, a Eurozone member country, is rated A. Does anyone seriously think the probability of default by Greece is greater than that for Ambac? And Fitch is conservative. Moodys and S&P still have Ambac rated as AAA suggesting, to anyone foolish enough to believe them, that the probability of default is negligible.
In the comments Mugwump offers this interesting insight:-
The solution is to get rid of the effective government-granted monopoly on ratings providers. The ratings used for banks, money markets and state pension funds must be assigned by Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations, or NRSROs.
In order to achieve the NRSRO designation, and organization must be “nationally recognized as an issuer of credible and reliable ratings by the predominant users of securities ratings.”
So you effectively cannot become an NRSRO unless you’re already an NRSRO. Catch 22.
This video is US centric but that doesn’t detract from the relevance of the central message. In terms of covering the fundamentals of the topic it gets the job done.
My parents only bothered to take out citizenship a few years ago. They have lived here so long that they are part of the funiture. However they never applied to be citizens before that because as permanent residents they had all the civil liberties you would expect from a nice place such as Australia without the hassle of having to vote or do jury duty. Plus they were busy. In the end long after the kids had all moved on it was the desire for an aussie passport and the removal of the pledge of allegiance to the Queen which swung the deal and they did the deed.
Some immigrants are much more keen to tie the knot and become aussie citizens. However since July last year there is now a quiz and a longer waiting period of four years. I think that everybody should enjoy basic civil rights as soon as they arrive here, however the political rights associated with citizenship are a separate matter.
Is a four year wait before you can become a citizen too long, not long enough or just right?
I found this reference with some details about waiting periods in other countries. Read more »
Inspired by some discussion about whether locking up drug uses is any more tolerable than locking up perpetrators of hate speech I did a little digging on Wikipedia to confirm my understanding of the medical implications of Heroin use. Wikipedia lists the following complications that can arise from Heroin use:-
1. For intravenous users of heroin (and any other substance), the use of non-sterile needles and syringes and other related equipment leads to the risk of contracting blood-borne pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis, as well as the risk of contracting bacterial or fungal endocarditis and possibly venous sclerosis.
2. Poisoning from contaminants added to “cut” or dilute heroin
3. Chronic constipation
4. Addiction and an increasing tolerance.
5. Physical dependence can result from prolonged use of all opiate and opioids, resulting in withdrawal symptoms on cessation of use.
6. Decreased kidney function. (although it is not currently known if this is due to adulterants used in the cut)
Of these 1 and 2 are primarily a problem associated with illegality. If heroin was legal then quality would improve.
Number 3 is obviously uncomfortable but in and of itself not generally a serious medical problem.
Number 4 is a given. The hit that heroin creates is highly addicative. Number 5 is merely the other side of the same coin.
Number 6 is the only real medical implication included in the list. However when you dig into the first source document that Wikipedia links to in relation to this it actually says “Use of marijuana, amphetamines, heroin, and other drugs was associated with elevated, but not statistically significant, risks for mild kidney function decline.” In other words there is a risk but not a big one. Alcohol consumption is know to cause similar problems.
Let me be real clear. I don’t recommend to anybody that they mess with heroin. It is very addictive and in my opinion the implications of possible legal sanctions and the economic cost associated with addiction is not worth it. The pleasure benefit does not endure with extended usage in any case. However the ongoing criminalisation of heroin use is stupid. All the significant negatives associated with heroin use stem from criminalisation not the actual substance itself. If harm minimisation is the goal then prohibition is a dismal failure.
This article written by Bob Geldof has a real air of surrealism. It’s about his flight on Air Force One and the time he spent chatting with US President George W Bush. Read more »
This story was intriguing when it first broke into the headlines but it now has more twists and subplots than a daytime soap opera. Everybody is having sex with somebody, people are passing out bribes, guys are impersonating ICAC officials to extort money, lovers are organising to knock eachother off. Even the state premier Morris Iemma makes an appearance on stage. And all in the name of motivating council staff to approve re-zoning and building permission in a state where property prices are through the roof.
According to an article in todays Age newspaper in Melbourne “Taxi licences have soared in value, jumping from $123,000 in 1989 to $474,390 now.” However this is not an issue unique to Victoria. Across many of Australias major cities obtaining the right to operate a taxi costs something similar to a suburban home. And that is merely the cost of government permission before you even pay for the vehicle and accessorites. This absurd situation has created a whole class of investors that own and trade licences and who have a vested interest in retention of the system. However it all comes at a significant cost to customers in terms of taxi availability. And even though taxi fares are generally regulated the viability of the industry demands that the fares set must accomodate the licensing costs. So consumers get a lower level of availability than they might otherwise and they pay a much higher price. All round the consumer is a big loser. An article last year in the Sydney Morning Herald suggest that in NSW the “cost to the consumer of excessive restrictions on taxi licence numbers is about $800 million per year“.
On April 19, 2008, Kevin Rudd is inviting 1000 “experts” for the Australia 2020 Summit to come up with Australia’s next big idea. For the rest of the 20,699,000 people in Oz, here’s our forum to list and vote on the best ideas to improve Australia.
There has been something of a discussion about carbon taxes at Catallaxy which started out pretty constructive however it seems to have turned somewhat feral and I’ve called it a day because wading through the abusive mud comments to find the gem comments is too much like hard work. Instead I’ve been doing some digging on Google and I found a few things that surprised me.
Firstly there is this news that British Columbia has just implemented a carbon tax in their latest budget with the revenue being used to reduce personal income tax and company tax.
That, at least, is how the provincial Canadian government has designed the tax, which will rise incrementally until 2012. It starts at about 9 cents per gallon of gas, and ending at about 27 cents.
But the $1.85 billion annual tax is about influencing behavior, not generating revenue for the government. Income and corporate taxes are to be adjusted to save people about as much as the carbon tax will cost them, and low-income residents will get $100 each, plus $30 per child.
This has got Canadian environmental poster boy David Suzuki rather excited. Anyway I thought that this was interesting and I wondered if any other nations have carbon taxes. Apparently several do.
Sweden in fact implemented a carbon tax at a wopping .25 SEK/kg (US$100 per ton) back in 1991 although it then proceeded to give all forms of discounts to industry. Although even after those discounts industry has been paying around US$25 per ton.
I’m pretty much of the view that any government initiative to reduce CO2 emissions in Australia should be in the form of broadening the base which the fuel tax applies to. This idea was first outlined to me by John Humphreys in January 2007 and he later published a paper on the topic. The option from that paper that I’m most inclined towards is a A$30 per tonne of CO2 tax. Such a tax if applied to all fossil fuels as a replacement for existing petrol taxes would see the price of petrol decline by around 30 cents per litre and the wholesale price of electricity rise by about 1.8 cents per kWhr.
Of course I would not object if somebody wanted to use a carbon tax to reduce income tax. Any shift away from income tax is a good thing in my view. And if they wanted to simply cut income tax with no new taxes then even better.
Trinaty Monique Howarth died of severe head and internal injuries in November 2005 after Cassidy, using a saucepan and walking stick, bashed her in the back of her mother’s car in a Canberra carpark.
Cassidy said he was trying to discipline the young girl for lying.
A charge of murder was downgraded to manslaughter.
I usually wear my bike helmet when I go for a ride because its the law and because I have generally accepted the view that it is good for my wellbeing. However that view is flawed according to this website:-
Perhaps that lump of plastic on my head is making me a more dangereous cyclist. And maybe compulsor helmet laws are causing us to exercise less. Given the obesity crisis in Australian (not to mention all the CO2 created when we drive instead of riding) then perhaps it is time to make bicycle helmets illegal.
Most aussie libertarians would not be surprised to hear the argument that private gun ownership tends to dampen crime. They may however be surprised to hear the argument being put by a high profile police officer who is responsible for administering the licensing of shooters.
I agree with the concerns raised in the article. However I do find odd the notion that governments stealing your land and selling it is somehow worse than stealing your land and keeping it. And is there really any distinction between stealing your land so a private for profit road can be built for the public good or stealing your land so a private for profit shopping mall can be built for the public good? In one sense I think there is a distinction in so far as new road corridors are not easily or readily created through private market means, whilst shopping centres are. However the key legal constraint on governments (at all tiers) really ought to be a proper and transparent assessment process of the public benefit of such a forced acquisition which is open to legal challenge, and a system of just compensation.
As many of our regular readers probably already know, some of us here at the Australian Libertarian Society are also affiliated with the Liberty and Democracy Party (LDP). I stood as a senate candidate for the LDP on the NSW ticket at the 2007 federal election and I was a member of the National Executive up until January 2008. The LDP is a moderate party of reform with a core libertarian philosophy.
Medicare should be reformed so it is more like HECS. When you front up to the doctor or hospital for medical services then in order to pay the medical bill you should have the option of whipping out some cash, whipping out the MASTERCARD or whipping out the Medicare card. Medicare should be a credit fascility much like MASTERCARD or VISA. The only difference should be that the Medicare debt should be repaid via the tax system in the same way that HECS debts are repaid. In fact the debt could be administered by the same bureaucracy.
Socialism and its near cousin Communism were the scourge of the 20th century and whilst its influence as an ideology is no longer as disastrous as it once was, it is perhaps more insidious today. Wikipedia in its 
Some immigrants are much more keen to tie the knot and become aussie citizens. However since July last year there is now a quiz and a longer waiting period of four years. I think that everybody should enjoy basic civil rights as soon as they arrive here, however the political rights associated with citizenship are a separate matter.
This story
According to 
There has been something of a discussion about carbon taxes at 
