As Jim Chalmers and Angus Taylor talk to business leaders and a couple Sky News viewers, there will be absolutely zero mention or suggestion that we should be taxing our gas companies more.

Right now we are giving away much of Australia’s gas FOR FREE

Unlike mining, no royalty is paid on most Australian gas exports. The PRRT was supposed to replace earlier royalty arrangements, but it has failed to deliver a return to the community. Some gas producers do pay a royalty and there is no reason that royalties could not be charged on all gas extraction.

We should extend the royalty regime to cover off-shore gas fields and actually increase the level they pay.

Because boy ho boy, are Australians owed some back-pay for all the gas that has been shipped off overseas.

Both Angus Taylor and Jim Chalmers are in Melbourne as guests of Sky News and the Business Council of Australia and the Small Business Organisations of Australia for a debate.

This is as home field advantage as Taylor could get – not surprisingly he has declined any opportunity to debate at the Press Club.

Angus Taylor led off talking about the decline in living standards, Chalmers responded by talking up the low unemployment rates, rising real wages and decrying those “talking down” the economy.

Both thanked those in the room for their efforts and work etc. So no I don’t think we are about to hear any talk of the need to tax company profits more.

OK, so we have gone from the health debate to the treasury debate.

We don’t think we have it in us, but will monitor. Just. There is no wine – and that is a problem.

The campaign rolls on for another 10 days, but high levels of early voting means more voters will stop following

The AEC reported on X this morning that over half a million people cast their ballot yesterday, a record for the first day of pre-polling. The roughly 542,000 people who have already cast their vote represent the equivalent of about four electorates out of 150.

At the same point in the 2022 election roughly 660,000 people had voted, but that was after two days of pre-polling compared to just one thus far.

If yesterday’s trend holds, we would expect over half of Australians to have cast a vote before election day on 3 May.

Australians are no longer voting together having watched an election campaign in full.

In last year’s Queensland election Labor lost government on a 7.0% swing against them, taking only 46.2% of the two-party-preferred vote. However, they suffered a much smaller swing from votes cast on election day, actually winning them with 50.6%. To some extent, this reflects a tendency for early voters to be more conservative. It’s also the case that voters on polling day saw more of the election campaign, particularly on the issue of abortion rights which heated up in the last week of Queensland’s poll.

It is difficult to imagine some transformative event in the final strait of this campaign, but ten days is a long time in politics. Next week Albanese and Dutton are lined up for their fourth debate, and last-minute policy announcements are still on the cards. Australians who vote early lose the opportunity to take these into account.

As Richard Denniss likes to the remind us “Economics 101 says we should tax things we want less of and subsidise things we want more of.” Unfortunately, Australia hasn’t learnt this lesson well enough. The current tax system too often encourages behaviour that is detrimental to Australia’s society and economy.

Tax big dumb utes
Utility vehicles (utes) are necessary to a range of occupations but their proliferation – particularly of larger, heavier models – damages the environment and roads and makes roads more dangerous.

Australia’s taxes and regulations actually encourage people to buy these utes. From 2001 to 2021, the number of passenger vehicles grew by half, while the number of light commercial vehicles (a category that overwhelmingly represents utes) doubled.

Essentially every ute is exempt from Luxury Car Tax due to a tax loophole, which encourages people to buy expensive utes instead of expensive smaller cars, including fuel-efficient and electric cars.

This loophole benefits buyers of the most expensive utes, such as Ram and Chevrolet models, but does not affect buyers of cheaper vehicles. Australia Institute analysis estimated this loophole cost $250 million in foregone revenue in 2023, mostly from expensive Ram and Chevrolet vehicles.

Limiting this exemption to vehicles that are for commercial rather than personal use could raise millions while reducing the number of these vehicles on Australian roads.

Other reforms that would raise revenue while increasing road safety and reducing emissions include reforming the Fringe Benefits Tax so that exemptions require proof that vehicles are strictly used for business purposes, and improved pricing mechanisms for road damage and carbon emissions.

Tax plastic packaging
By 2050, the amount of plastic consumed in Australia will more than double. Despite policies aimed at a ‘circular economy’, just 14% of plastic waste is kept out of landfill. Recycling plastic is expensive and hazardous, with little demand for recycled plastics.

Taxing plastic packaging is not a revolutionary thing. It is already being implimented in the European Union. A plastic packaging tax like that in the EU could raise around $1.5bn.

Stop subsidising tax avoidance
Many Australians employ an accountant to do their taxes and can deduct this expense from their tax. However, a very wealthy few spend tens of thousands of dollars to reduce their taxable income and avoid paying tax. In effect, the government is subsidising people avoiding tax. According to the Australian Treasury’s most recent figures, this tax concession cost $1.4 billion in 2021-22 of which about half (49%) flowed to the top 10%.

In 2017, the Labor party proposed limiting the amount that could be claimed for managing tax affairs at $3,000. This reform would allow high-income earners to still use the services of high-priced tax accountants and lawyers to reduce their taxable income, but they would no longer be able to deduct the total cost of doing so. Implementing this policy today would likely raise at least $130 million per annum.

You know how the AEC thinks that half of Australian voters will vote before May 3? Well Australians are rushing to prove them right.

According to the AEC, more than 540,000 voters ran to pre-polling booths as soon as they opened yesterday. That is up by about 70% from the 2022 opening day.

There is a debate at the national press club between Mark Butler and Anne Ruston on health.

It is all what we have heard before.

If you are interested in what is going on in the health portfolio, read this excellent analysis from ABC political reporter, Stephanie Dalzell as it sums up the current state of play beautifully.

After both major parties said they wanted to see house prices to continue to grow, the Greens asked for some analysis on what that might mean.

They also had a look at the very good analysis the Guardian’s economics editor, Patrick Commins did looking at how long Australians could be waiting for housing to become affordable under the major party policies.

Spoiler – it is all bad:

New Greens analysis has shown that average house prices could grow by up to $121,500 nationally this year, under the major parties’ unity ticket to further turbocharge house prices.

In Sydney, the projected increase would mean a median house price rise of $112,800 under Labor or $211,500 under the Coalition.

A typical house in Brisbane would increase by $72,000 this year under Labor, or by $135,000 under the Coalition.

The changes would mean house prices would rise 2.5 times faster than wages under Labor, or 4.6 times faster under the Coalition.

The analysis utilises estimates from SQM economist Louis Christopher that house prices will rise by 8% this year under Labor’s recently announced policies, or 15% under the Coalition, and utilises CoreLogic median house price data and pre-election economic and fiscal outlook wage projections.

In comes as analysis from the Guardian shows Australians could be waiting more than 70 years for affordable housing following the paths of the major parties.

A reader asks: If you fill out the ballot correctly in terms of numbering, but write a message on the ballot (a la The Franklin Dam campaign) is the ballot then treated as informal? An “informal vote” is one that does not follow the rules, and therefore is not counted.

1. The most common source of informality is voters failing to number every box.

In the House of Representatives, you must number every box sequentially for your vote to be valid.

For example, if there are four candidates, you must put “1” next to the candidate you most prefer, “2” next to your second preference, “3” next to your third preference and “4” next to your least-preferred candidate.

In the Senate it is similar, although you can stop numbering after six boxes above the line or 12 boxes below the line. (I still recommend numbering every box either above or below the line.)

Don’t write in a new candidate or rename an old one, or your vote could be invalid.

If there is any risk of confusion, ask for a new ballot. Maybe you wrote “4” twice. Maybe your “1” looks like a “7”. Better to be safe than sorry.

2. A vote is also informal if you identify yourself

Do not autograph your ballot. Do not write “I voted for Joe Bloggs because he’s my cousin” or “Bill B approves this message”. If your ballot could uniquely identify you, it will be thrown out.

So can you write something on your ballot?

If you number every box, do not interfere with the printed list of candidates, and do not identify yourself, your vote will count – even if you write something on the ballot.

However, I strongly recommend against writing on the ballot.

It serves no purpose – the only people who will see your message are Electoral Commission staff and election scrutineers.

And you do not want to take the risk that you write something identifying, or otherwise invalidate your vote.

It makes everyone’s life easier if your ballot looks exactly like it is supposed to.

Why did the Franklin Dam campaign encourage people to write on their ballot?

There were very good reasons for environmentalists to encourage people to write “No dams” on their ballots – but it was a unique circumstance.

In the 1980s, the Tasmanian Government was planning to build a hydroelectric dam despite consequences for the natural environment, jeopardising in particular the Franklin River.

Premier Doug Lowe took the question of where to build the dam to a state-wide referendum. Voters were forced to choose between two locations for the dam; they could not choose “no dam”.

Almost half of voters (45%) either wrote “No dams” or cast invalid or blank votes, showing the strength of community opposition. Even so, if you wrote “No dams” but still cast a valid vote, then your vote still counted towards the question of where to build the dam.

In this case, the invalid vote was the point. Tasmanians had been “allowed” to choose between the Devil and the deep blue sea, and the only way to win was to reject the premise of the question. In the end, the proposed dam was cancelled by a federal government elected with a clear anti-Franklin Dam policy.

This election is very different to the Franklin Dam referendum. I don’t think voters have anything to gain by writing messages on their ballot paper.

Housing is rightly one of the major issues of the campaign. The housing crisis sees an increasingly large number of people locked out of buying their own home. It also sees those that can buy their own home saddled with enormous mortgages.

Over the course of this century, housing affordability has declined at rates not experienced at any point since WWII. Since 1999 to the present, the cost of residential property prices has risen in real terms by 149% – nearly 4 times faster than the 38% increase that occurred over the 25 years from 1974–1999.

This increase has caused a significant and unprecedented drop in home ownership. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Survey of Income and Housing has shown a steady decline in home ownership from 70% in 1999–2000 to 66% in 2019–20. If the rates of home ownership had stayed the same between 1999–00 and 2019–20, an additional 430,000 households would now own their own home.

This drop however is not due to some societal shift in desires of home ownership or a steep fall in supply but is greatly due to the implementation of taxation policies that are designed to distort the housing market such that investors are given an advantage over owner-occupiers.

One of the easiest and fastest reforms that will increase home ownership is reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax (CGT) discount. This will help squeeze out those buying multiple houses as investments. This will see more first home buyers being able to get into their own home.

These reforms will also raise up to $14.8 billion. This could be used to build more housing, expanding supply and helping to make housing even more affordable.

Most of the policy offering from both major parties are likely to increase demand for housing, increasing house prices and making the housing crisis worse. While Labor has some policies to increase supply, just focusing on supply is the slowest and most expensive way to make housing more affordable.

Reforming negative gearing and the CGT discount is the lowest of low hanging fruit. Raising money for the budget and making housing more affordable.