Chamber sides with the big end of town, tells members to learn to love the QIC monopoly

I find it very interesting that they (Qld) have invested in Canberra so much. I guess investing in Qld would raise all sorts of questions about Government interfering in the free market?

It is an absolute shame that such a huge part of the City is covered by a shopping mall. That a significant proportion of the Cities central park (Glebe Park) faces this malls multistory car-park, garbage hoppers and loading zones.

AG Canberra said :

Yep – but is it good that one group owns all the retail space in the city? (or the vast majority of it?)

Yes they spent a bucket on the new Canberra Centre. But if they are going to play silly buggers with the small tennants in the other buildings – just to get them to leave so they can bulldoze the pace – is that OK?

And what is the plan for the “non-updated” parts of the city?

Problem is, the current landlords in Civic have literally done nothing to maintain their buildings or support their tenants. You only have to look at the sydney building for an example of that. I can’t remember the last time any significant work was done on the buildings in Garema Place to improve their appearance and usability.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have our federal government investing in these things so they could lower our taxes too. They could invest in useful stuff like communications, water, power; oh that’s right, someone already sold all of those. too bad if the gov’t needs some cash during the global meltdown.

Dead right, astro. We’re all the poorer for these takeovers by the large developers. Doesn’t surprise me that the Chamber of Commerce has backed them – the larger the member organisation, the greater the membership fees. Small members (another Passy-type pun?) don’t get a look in.

The Catherine Carter show (aka Property Council of Australia, ACT Branch) operates along the same lines, and pushes the barrow of their largest members.

What is a win for the consumer is sometimes not always a win for the smaller retailer

ipso facto, what is a loss for the small retailer can be a loss for the consumer what is wanting a small retailer and not a megalopolous of a superstore-something, nor niche franchise of an uber-rich gucci store or similar…

Yep – but is it good that one group owns all the retail space in the city? (or the vast majority of it?)

Yes they spent a bucket on the new Canberra Centre. But if they are going to play silly buggers with the small tennants in the other buildings – just to get them to leave so they can bulldoze the pace – is that OK?

And what is the plan for the “non-updated” parts of the city?

Spot on Caf.

It is the investment pool for the Qld state and local government bodies/agencies/authorities/councils.
It was established more than a decade ago because all these bodies were merely investing all their funds in bank term deposits with crappy returns.

QIC allowed so much money to be pooled that they got outstandingly better returns.
And part of where they put the money was here in Canberra.

So when you shop in the Canberra Centre you can be happy that you are helping reduce ratepayer bills all over Qld!

QIC is not “ALP owned”, any more than ACTEW is. It’s a Queensland Government Owned Corporation.

If Springborg wins the election will it become “LNP owned”?