The results of Land Tax are horrendous.

However it is not only Land Tax that is a bad thing, it is the presumption by a State government that it is a Church, that really rankles. Churches developed a way of claiming that they had a divine right to demand money from their richer members. Since it has taken on all the characteristics of a Church, like quadrennial elections, a central synod called Parliament , an Archbishop called a Premier, and lots of little Bishops called Ministers of the Crown, the State government in New South Wales has had to find ways to support themselves. Land Tax is one of them. There are lots of others like the revenue cameras, and the roving Tax collectors in blue uniforms, who carry guns nowadays.

The leaders of this Atheist Church, and greatest supporters are the lawyers who benefit most from its creation. They have their own private clubs called the Law Society, and Bar Association, which have a membership fee and a requirement for about $6,000 a year in insurance, however since any claim on that insurance must be pursued through the Courts, the insurance almost never pays, and fights vigorously whenever anyone has the gall to make a claim.

Land Tax is a tax on poor people, not on Land. It is a typical Roman Catholic type of government trick that has reduced most of Latin America into a two tier society. A rich society and a poor society with armed Police to protect the rich.

The central core belief of the State government church is that once a voter gives a vote to anyone every four years, they have no further part to play in the government of their society, and the State priests in all their Courts, the Judges and Magistrates have to blindly obey the dictates of whatever gang controls Parliament. Since it thinks it is Sovereign, like the Pope in Rome who came and partook of the bounty, it thinks it has a divine right to tax.

If you tax the landowners in society, you actually destroy it.

Sadly, it is a fact of life these days that if we remove one tax, it must be replaced with another. We have to feed all those public servants, don't we, and fund all their pensions.

So why pick on this particular tax for abolition? It only affects property speculators, after all. It is just another expense, and simply gets added to the rent.

But I had to laugh at this one - PtB, you are such an idealist!

>>Our legal system is based on the principle that there cannot be inconsistent laws<<

Ho ho. Ha ha, Hee hee. It must be the way you tell 'em, with that straight face of yours...

So let's have another chuckle, shall we?

Tell me about retrospective legislation, PtB.

We are one of the few countries in the world that countenances such an iniquitous concept. Something we do today, in full compliance with the law, can be made retrospectively illegal with a stroke of a government pen.

Yet it is a concept that has survived two separate legal challenges over the years.

Our legal system based on the principle that there cannot be inconsistent laws?

Tell it to the marines.

Poor old Pericles. Not only does he mock the late Lionel Murphy, who I so reverently quoted earlier, he also mocks the Parliament of the Commonwealth which makes it a law that there cannot be inconsistent laws. Tell it to the marines indeed. The case in which the late Justice Murphy expressed the opinion quoted so eloquently was Metwally, in 1984, before people like Pericles started spreading the nasty Furphy that Parliament is not accountable to anyone.

What has happened is that Pericles and his fellow unbelievers have convinced a very small majority of super powerful individuals, holding judicial offices in Australia as representatives of a small minority, that Parliament is indeed a substitute for Almighty God and their word is unassailable. Trouble is that there are nine of these parliamentary talkboxes in Australia , stacked with hundreds of politicians, a large number of whom are lawyers, trying to scam a very good living by imposing inequitable taxes on anybody who owns anything at all.

The old saying that if you cannot do, teach, may apply just as well to lawyers. If you cannot make an honest living as a lawyer, get into Parliament.

Now once upon a time lawyers were trained by an articled clerk system, but that was before the lawyers changed the rules. Before 1970, when they changed the way the Supreme Court does business in New South Wales to become a lawyer you needed to find a good solicitor, and do a course while working for him. He in turn was a highly respected businessman in his local community, and almost revered for his learning.

Most had a good personal library, with the mandatory Halsbury’s Laws of England, Third Edition or earlier on their bookshelf, and tried to give good sound advice to clients. Many of them gave free advice to landowners, because then when land was traded they got the conveyancing. Litigation was rare, and most disputes were settled by a couple of solicitors letters and a lot of common sense.

Land Tax is a bitch and should be consigned to the dogbox of history.