More on Callan Park

If I ruled the world, I'd levy a special super-tax on ignorant bastards like the owner of this house near Callan Park. Not that I am generally in favour of higher taxes, but there are times when I feel that stupid people should be made to pay the price for their stupid ideas.


The aim of my super tax would be to grab all the additional capital value created by not developing Callan Park. Here's my maths.

Let's say this dump was worth $1 million a few weeks ago. Then the decision was made to not give the land to Sydney Uni, and let's say this house suddenly shot up in value to $1.2 million because of that. My super-tax would take that additional $200k, because the increase in value has nothing to do with a rising property market or improvements to this house - it's due to a policy decision by government. If people can be compensated when government decisions reduce the value of their property, then they can be un-compensated when government decisions deliver windfall capital gains to them.

I wonder if these people would be so pushy in regard to sites like Callan Park if they realised up front that they weren't going to make a cent out of it, regardless of the outcome.

In short, that would fuck 'em.

By the way, such a tax would raise a lot of money, for there are a lot of signs like this scattered around Callan Park.