Why Congestion taxes without population limits don't work in Australia

State governments are in the business of creating the conditions that cause overpopulation, and then of limiting public transport, whilst increasing road-building, so that people become even more reliant on cars. They encourage business to invest in speculative 'solutions' for these problems and then collect so-called environmental taxes in a vicious cycle that is part of growth economics.

Ecology of congestion taxes and multistory parking lots

Have you ever looked closely at a rose bush and marveled to see thousands of aphids clinging to the roses, with many ants tending them? The aphids are eating the roses and the ants are milking the aphids. It's a kind of farm and if nothing controlled it, like ladybirds or hoverfly larvae, the roses would become a mess.

I was reminded of this insect economy when I read about the trials and tribulations of high-rise parking lot landlords and their relations with State governments recently.

The state governments are like the ants and the parking lot owners and their Real-Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) are like the aphids, and they are living off our once useful and well-planned towns and cities. The rest of us - the gardeners and voters - have become too busy or too confused to tend our gardens anymore, so the insects are taking over.[1]

How parasitic industries and governments prosper from overpopulation

Consider the multi-story parking lot and marvel at how parasitic industries prosper from overpopulation in this country. State governments seem to be in the business of creating the conditions that cause overpopulation, and then of limiting public transport, whilst increasing road-building, so that people become even more reliant on cars.

Do you remember when you first noticed a multi-story car park in your suburb or town?

Were you shocked that someone anticipated so much population growth that they would be able to make money out of renting ugly concrete spaces by the hour just to park cars? Have you ever considered how many tall buildings in the city are built simply to stack cars one on top of the other?

In the city we are talking double figures for a few hours to a day's parking.

It is a sign of overpopulation coupled with growth-lobby urban planning when enough people find they have little choice but to take their cars into the city for the owners of multi-story car parks to make a living from them, like ants milking aphids parked on plants.

In my town, like my city, the council actually encourages population growth in part so that such parasitic investments can prosper. To me it seems like shooting yourself in the foot so that the doctor can collect a fee, but in council-logic, that's generating business.

State Government Congestion Taxes

In 2006 Australian State Governments began imposing levies on parking facilities in a so-called 'congestion tax'. That would have met with the approval of people with 'environmental values' who don't understand how business and government make money out of overpopulation. Well now it seems that Australian state governments are talking about increasing those levies. The car park industry is alarmed. A spokesperson for Wilson Parking has been described as saying that 'car park operators would not be able to pass on the cost of rising levies to price-sensitive car park users. Instead the higher costs would have to be passed on to landlords through rent reductions.'

It is claimed that the owners of car parks will finish up bearing the levy and that this will finish up hurting the 'mums and dads that own the REITS.' (REITS stands for Real Estate Investment Trusts.) You or your bank and superannuation fund can invest in your city's and your society's misfortune. And that's the part of capitalism that keeps us all unhappy.

Responding to the news that levies are going to go up, an Adelaide office building and car park landlord was quoted by the Australian Financial Review as saying, "Operators will get to a point where [the car parks] will be unprofitable and if they can't recover then ultimately it will affect property values. If I can't rent the car park to an operator the value of the property will be affected."

The car park lords are cooking up a panic-storm claiming that this isn't really a congestion tax; it's a property tax.

Well, yes! And car parks are turbo-charged property speculators, ripe for property taxes.

Isn't that good? Not if it is all self-perpetuating.

Green-sounding doesn't make it green

Here is why it is very important for environmentalists to count population growth in any environmental equation. Whereas a government might bring in a tax with a green-sounding name, like 'congestion tax', if the same government then advertises overseas for more and more migrants and encourages road building in
preference to public transport, then what is going to happen?

There will be reliable growth in congestion.

Business will make money out of managing the burgeoning inconveniences, by building things like high rise parking lots, toll-ways and apartment blocks.

Then state governments will impose levies, stamp duties etc.

Locked into their parasitic investments, the parking lot speculators now become captive cashcows, milking smaller cows - the public.

The state government collects the taxes and, to drive up the value of the cash cows, it artificially stimulates population growth, and, in this case it then increases its congestion taxes.

The sums of money are phenomenal. The 'congestion taxes' amount to $930 per bay, soon to go up to $1300 per bay.

It is like a mad dance between government and big business, as we use up all of our cheap fossil fuel and heat up the atmosphere to power an economy that seems to be devoted to turning our environments into vast human termite mounds and dooming everyone into endless service inside these termite economies.

NOTES

[1] In fact, I do ants and aphids an injustice here and the mosquitos sucking from the ticks in the cartoon is more accurate, however, the ants and aphids serves a purpose and it was too late to change metaphors in mid article.
Source on congestion tax levies for parking lots was Mathew Cranston and Rebecca Thistleton, 'Car park owners slam levy increase', Australian Financial Review, 16 May 2013, p.44