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.
"A Dark Day for Aussie Expats" screams the SMH headline earlier in the week, announcing the formal closure of the Australia Network TV service later this month (28 September to be precise), thankfully four hours after the AFL Grand Final.
The Managing Director of the ABC, parent of the Australia Network has done a good job of politicising the closure in light of the recent budget cuts. The move is seen as rather unpopular back home, largely by armchair experts who's only exposure to the general programming is the odd AFL game while travelling in Phuket of Bali.
Many of the armchair experts would like to think the Australia Network is broadcasting daily enlightenment into remote villages in Fiji, earth-shattering education into Vietnam, and the highest quality Australian-made regional news into China.
As an expat of quite a few years now, I feel I can confidently say the Australia Network has delivered on few of these aspirations. On weekends there is a lot of Australian Football, during the week using tomorrow's TV guide as an example shows a morning full of children's entertainment, followed by some English tutorials around midday, My Kitchen Rules at midday, more children's programming in the afternoon, some news, and repeats of ABC documentaries into the evening.
Its hardly ground breaking stuff, especially in an age where children's entertainment, news and language tuition courses are widely available on other channels, or via the internet, without the Australian taxpayer having to subsidise it.
The news offering is often highly Australia focused, often including regional state weather updates, which is hardly going to appeal to an international audience. Worse still, the network shows talk shows which broadcast the worst of Australia's political dirty laundry (think Q&A on a Monday night) directly into Asia, which might not be the best approach in a region where saving face is everything. I'm not sure too many villagers in Indonesia appreciate spikey-haired inner-urban coffee swilling hipster's views of the world being shoved down their throats, and are probably much more likely to be watching their local TV networks.
Personally, I'll miss the Australia Network for the free football, once the season resumes next year. I think I can speak on behalf of most expats when saying the Australia Network was largely forgotten during the off-season between October and March anyhow.
On the upside, I can pay the annual subscription for the digital service afl.tv, and carry on watching to my heart's content (again without the Australian taxpayer having to foot the bill). I hear some content will be available via a regional internet viewing platform, which may prove useful. The remainder of the service however, I won't miss quite so much. It was good while it lasted, but its time to move on.
Singapore. The good, including over-the-top laundry service that sends a text message when your garments are ready for collection.
Honorable mention goes out to the coffee shop at Sixth Avenue where my wife left her handbag on Sunday, being Singapore we went back twenty minutes later and it had been handed in, wallet, cash and cards intact, for collection. Try doing that in Sydney, London, or pretty much any other major city in the World without having to spend the next few hours cancelling and replacing credit cards.
The bad, and to quote The Joker from the original Batman "can someone tell me what kind of a World we live in... [where grown women sign up for a cartoon cat-themed fun run?]. I'm talking about the Hello Kitty Run of course, and word is it sold out in an hour. Not sure if there's any truth to those rumours, but wouldn't be the least bit surprised based on how quickly some of the McDonald's happy meals have sold out in this part of the world.
The ugly: Starhubs, one of the worst companies ever known to man. Where advertised internet speeds actually apply to the whole building, and if there are sixty apartments trying to download something at the same time, watching the screen feels like watching a picture download pixel-by-pixel used to in the late 1990's. On a brighter note, we're looking to move to another apartment soon, which will be the perfect excuse to give Starhub internet the big cannot, and move onto a bigger & better service that actually does what it says on the tin. Bring it on. Having a dedicated VPN will also mean we can drastically downsize on the Starhub tv networks including the woeful HBO, instead being able to watch ABC iView from Australia, along with the wonderful services offered by Channel 4 and the BBC in the UK. With these services along with the likes of Netflix increasingly catching on, companies that treat their customers like Starhub are about to become dinosaurs.
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