The rising value of the earth is not a given; but rather, a product of supply and demand!
Harnessing a monopoly for the common good, sounds almost as if it came straight from the pages of Carl Marx's essays?
And communism as a system for progressing the common man, has failed quite miserably, given, it removes personal enterprise/motivation, or simply punishes it; and indeed, required quite massive and institutionalised slavery, to prop it up!
In fee simple or freehold is not ownership; but rather, an enduring prepaid perpetual lease, which the govt can and does terminate, as it sees fit, by resumption.
Small business is our largest employer, and reducing it to a concept of simply working for the landlord/govt, will sound the death knell of personal enterprise!
We can however, make a LOGICAL argument for repealing negative gearing, and replacing that form of unearned welfare for the rich, with a capital gains tax, which would also substitute for stamp duty/the GST!
Stamp duty is another of those illogical concepts, that penalises enterprise at the front end, whereas, a replacement capital gains, would impose the citizens' share at the back end, and adjusted for inflation, would at least be seen to be inherently fair?
Moreover, moderate/stabilise the housing market, and indeed, return affordability to this quite massively manipulated; [hopefully, occasionally,] supply and demand market!
The destiny of demography demands, we get away from ever increasing tax imposts on a shrinking pool of taxpayers, with the end result, ever diminishing govt supplied service, and more and more, socially counter productive privatization.
This could be fixed and made much more equitable for all, by replacing all the current convoluted complexity, with its trillions in annual avoidance, with a simple, entirely unavoidable, inherently fair, single, stand alone, [almost,] expenditure tax!
Rhrosty.

The author wrote: "Meanwhile small business struggles with rising rents, while surrounding them here in Melbourne is a commercial vacancy rate of some 24% (PDF, Appendix C)."

Here's the PDF: http://www.earthsharing.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Speculative_Vacancies2012_Appendices.pdf (link posted at the request of Karl Fitzgerald, who is busy at the moment).

Re Rhrosty and the old red-under-the-beds libel:

Georgists (such as Karl Fitzgerald and myself) divide the "means of production" into two categories: those that can be produced or reproduced by private agents, and those that can't ("monopolies"). The former, according to Georgists, should be privately owned and free from taxation, while the economic rents accruing to the latter are the proper source of public revenue.

Communism makes no such distinction, insisting that all "means of production" be publicly owned.

What passes for capitalism likewise makes no such distinction, and, by failing to collect enough economic rents for public revenue, obliges "capitalist" governments to confiscate the fruits of private effort -- as communist governments do.

Thus communism and our present faux-capitalism have more in common with each other than either has with Georgism.