You are getting overly excited about this huge big tax. If it goes it all of a sudden will not exist, it will not be found in the system. we are talking 8 %.

.....we are talking 8 %.

579, percentages are irreverent, Qantas for example paid a whopping $300 million last year.

That's ultimately $300 million plus that customers had to pay and no doubt it has added to it's wows.

I say plus, because most businesses can't operate on a cost recovery basis, so charges associated with this tax have to also be passed on, like admin and funding costs to name just two.

Sorry, but you don't create jobs by placing hurdles in the way.

Having been involved in small developments I would like to correct the view any might have obtained that it is pots of honey for little risk.

It is always high risk and any profit usually depends on the sale of the last unit. Contrary to what I have been reading here, the escalating costs have been due to delays on approvals, government requirements and taxes, and increases in costs of materials and labour. Some trades call it how they like it and even then try to renegotiate when they arrive on site.

Maybe the windfalls are in large developments? Maybe not though, considering the number who try and fail. As if there isn't competition, a fickle market and unsettling frequent changes by government.

To all who want to get into small scale development: go for it by all means, but come the end of the day you will lose your shirt and home too if you do not successfully manage those risks, and some luck always helps.

As for 'investing' in rental housing, and I am not referring to any posts here because I don't know the people, but very, very few people I have ever met have the cash reserve, gumption and stamina to realise a reasonable profit from that business. They don't even build properties that are simple and durable enough to keep repairs low given the inevitable hard use, and while fittings and appliances may last years where the home owner is in residence, any possible weakness will evidence very quickly and expensively where there is all care (maybe and hopefully) and no responsibility with tenants.

We are alive for three score and ten, but that is considerably shortened by any 'investment' in rental housing.

Hi onthebeach, it is always the jealous lefty mob, who never do anything, bitching if someone makes a quid on anything.

I always found it amusing when greenie ratbags who wanted jobs would bitch about the "get rich quick" developer. It didn't matter much whether it was an island or mainland resort I always wondered why anyone did it.

Keith Williams was the only one I saw who did not lose their shirt. Usually the second owner who bought in for half the development cost at the fire sale, still went broke, unable to meet borrowing costs.

It was only the third or fourth owner, who paid perhaps a third or a quarter of the initial cost, who could struggle through.

Investing in anything but industrial properties is a mugs game.

Hasbeen, "Investing in anything but industrial properties is a mugs game"

Agreed, however for low risk and high return the best investment is a job with a quango like the Human Rights Commission. Sinecures that keep on giving.

Talking about low risk employment, a job as a client of Wonderful Centrelink is tops, a beauty.

Do you ever imagine that 'Houso' clients of Centrelink would ever dip their thumbnail in the spillage of their bourbon and coke and figure what $amount they would need to invest to provide the inflation-proofed returns and entitlements eg medical benefits and rental assistance that they get from government? -Regardless of their non-performance as a citizen and in some cases, their flagrant disregard for laws, thus adding to the overheads of keeping them and any harm they cause others?

So true onthebeach.

Unfortunately I have never been far enough left to get a job on a quango, academia, or even the bureaucracy.

I doubt think I could stand the company. I have a cousin, thick as 2 corner posts, who got a clerical job with the Sydney County council, straight from school.

Kept his nose clean, worshiped the right people, & ended up third in charge at retirement. His pension is more than I ever earned.

Come to think of it, who is dumb?