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Your views: on airport drop-offs, land tax and US missiles

Today, readers comment on sorting out an airport traffic headache, land tax burdens and Australia finding a way through regional tensions.

Aug 06, 2019, updated Aug 06, 2019

Commenting on the story: Airport flights, passengers and road traffic set to take off 

I travel almost every two weeks and have noticed the ongoing development at Adelaide Airport, which is fantastic for the state.

Reading the InDaily article with numbers of every aspect of the airport increasing, what concerns me is the Drop Off – Pick Up zone, that is not coping with the current traffic.

Further development of the airport is going to mean more flights, thus more traffic delivering and picking up commuters, resulting in more congestion, frustration and over-zealous traffic wardens.

When the airport was first re-developed, the Drop Off zone on the top level with the Pick Up zone on the ground level worked fantastically, but due to the need to move traffic from adjacent to the terminal into the new carpark, the design did not include the upper and lower zones and has been a debacle ever since.

I am interested to see how the airport management handle the problem when it becomes unmanageable.

Another Band-aid result on its way! Rod Yates 

Commenting on the story: Inquiry call as bank boss warns land tax reform will reap “well north” of $40 million

Mr Rohrsheim fails to appreciate that it is not a loophole that is being closed; rather, a substantial change to the way a tax is being charged.

The other states that do this have thresholds three times higher before the top rate of tax kicks in, and rates that are half of what is charged in SA.

Property taxes cannot be compared to payroll tax. Firstly, in addition to land tax there are further state taxes on property in the form of stamp duty (on residential property), council rates, Emergency Services Levy, water supply charge and sewer charge.

There are further expenses in the form of building insurance, public liability insurance, repairs, maintenance and finance costs.

If times are tough as an employer you can reduce your payroll tax by varying the size of your work force or look for other efficiencies.

In property, the mentioned taxes and costs are fixed and landowners are powerless to vary them.

The different categories of property also have differing fundamentals.

For example, residential properties typically yield 4%, with a land tax rate of 3.7% on top of the other expenses.

There is no viable way to invest in residential property of any scale, at a time that governments and welfare bodies are calling for more affordable housing to be built.

Families and business alike have made very significant decisions over a long period of time based on the law as it stands.

To to pull the rug from under them goes against all principles of fairness and equity. Johan Gunner

Commenting on the story: No US missiles in Darwin without Australia’s permission: Pompeo

That’s a hard question for Australia to answer and the land Down Under should take a very long and hard look at itself, both in terms of benefits and the potential for Chinese blowback, before we even consider allowing the US to station its missiles in Darwin.

The US and a militarily proactive and expansionist China are currently duking it out over questions of freedom of navigation and Chinese weaponisation of its man-made atolls in the South China Sea.

In terms of our relationship with China, an Australian Navy vessel was recently tailed by the Chinese military near islands controversially claimed by China.

Australia faces a real problem as like many so-called US allies, including Japan and South Korea, are feeling the full blow-torch effects of Trump’s unhinged and batty presidency.

It’s not hard to imagine the potential for significant economic benefits in terms of job creation for the now-struggling NT economy.

There is also the further muscling up of Australia’s defence ties with America by cozying up to it, but one can also easily envisage the hullabaloo and potential for outrage and payback by our most significant trading partner.

Currently, China has more than 166,000 students studying in Australia with more to come.

Imagine the effect on this aspect of the Sino – Australian “two-step” should China decide to pull the plug or alternatively go cool on Australia if and when it was to learn that long-range US missiles are were pointed at it from our northernmost shores.

A hard question to answer. – Gilbert Aitken

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