The Sydney Morning Herald are at it again, with further justification of why I'll never pay for that garbage via their subscription model.
Today its all of a sudden news that Sydney is in a 'Losing Battle to Become a Global Financial Centre'. Forget that, the battle as far as Sydney is concerned was run and lost a long time ago. Its hardly news, yet the SMH show it as a major story on the front page of the website. What garbage.
Forget becoming a global financial centre, Sydney these days is struggling to retain its position as Australia's main financial centre, with Melbourne fast catching up on both population and business representation. Many investment banks that used to have offices in only Sydney now have offices in Melbourne also, and over the next decade Melbourne is set to overtake Sydney in the population stakes.
Sydney can largely lay blame at the chronic lack of investment in infrastructure over the last few decades. Infrastructure the Sydney Morning Herald has often fought hard to fend off - witness the NIMBY attitude towards the metro system that was proposed a few years back, largely because it didn't connect directly to someone's front yard out in the vast Western Suburbs.
Having worked and lived in both Hong Kong and Singapore for quite a few years now I can certainly vouch for Sydney losing its fair share of financial jobs. It makes much more sense for financial instituions to run regional hubs out of Hong Kong and / or Singapore, with support functions also being run out of lower cost locations in the region, rather than having many small offices dotted around the region.
The tax rates in Hong Kong and Singapore are also favourable, and most of the Aussie expats I know in Singapore are here because their roles back home were offshored. We're just the lucky ones that got to come to Singapore with them.
Witness also the performance of the last Labor Government, who terminated a 'Heads of Ops' forum, which took place regularly in Sydney and had representation from Government and investment banks, where the topic was what the government could do to make sure the banks stayed put. The Rudd / Gillard government promtly cancelled the forum, assuming the banks were there for good anyway. Banks quickly replied by shifting jobs in their thousands away from Sydney into other hubs around the region, and have never looked back.
Woe is me, Sydney. Its time for a solid dose of reality.
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