Labor’s Rudd-era National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) has come under attack just when it might be needed. We need to learn from past mistakes, but we don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Economics and planning go together like toast and vegemite (or whatever your preferred spread is) – neither is much good without the other. Marion Terrill’s critique of the proposed Suburban Rail Loop underlines the need to apply both economics and planning in the successful prosecution of infrastructure policy. Economists look at the world and try to explain why it is as it is. Planners look at the world and consider how it should or could be. Public policy suffers whenever one perspective trumps the other.

Land development rights are in reality a public asset and should be capable of being exploited only where accompanied by a fair value commitment to improvement of the public realm, including for example through the delivery of more social or affordable housing. Part of the value added from increases in the value of development rights (e.g. as a result of re-zoning or infrastructure improvements) should be re-directed from the seller to the community. This could be done without either increasing the cost of development, or the cost of housing.

Transitioning to a clean economy and reducing emissions would save the Australian economy $549 billion over the next decade while at the same time providing a number of social and environmental benefits.