This comment was made this week at http://www.macrobusiness.com.au  (link may be locked)

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/02/abbottalypse-destruction-mushrooms/#comment-1082523

• Nor,

  There are still plenty of places in the US where land costs are low.

  In Australia, in a breathtaking act of stupidity, we have managed to engineer policies that ensure that the cost of land that can be used for residential or commercial purposes is expensive right across the country.

  Furthermore our exchange rate is bloated with sales of capital assets and public and private IOUs to offshore parties, so we are less competitive.

  Much of those off shore borrowings were used to bid up house prices.

  It SHOULD be dirt cheap to set up business or to live in regional areas but instead it is still expensive albeit less expensive than the capitals.

  If it was cheap and viable people would be doing it.

  Making it so would not be hard but would require taking action to divert resources from our main past time of bidding up the prices of existing assets and extracting non-renewable resources at a rapid rate.

  We call that process being the ‘Lucky Country’

• Nor

  February 11, 2015 at 6:42 am

  Phf,

  I hear you but relatively speaking the land in regional areas is still cheaper. However, specufestors need to be punished with a land value tax to stop land banking.

  Personally, if Tasmania had good jobs on offer (and the vibrancy that comes with it) I think it would be a great place to live. Or Bendigo with a high speed rail connection to Melbourne + gigabit fibre internet? Why the hell not. Not like I’m out at cafes every night, I could care less – I stay inside most of the time and when I do want culture I’ll hop the high speed train to the big city.

  This isn’t a new concept, it exists in Europe, Japan, etc. It’s just foreign to parochial Australians

• Pfh007

  February 11, 2015 at 7:17 am

  Nor,

  It is not so much that Australians are particularly parochial (you must be joking when you suggest the Japanese and Europeans are not parochial)and resistant to move to a new location but they must perceive that there are opportunities.

  Like the US we are a land of migrants so moving to new locations is not likely to be the issue.

  But unlike the US we have an anglo cringing elite who truck in negativity and like to strangle opportunity at birth or smother it in red tape.