Very good points but the head offices are basically following the shareholders. And as the superannuation industry and the institutional investors take up an ever increasing portion of the ownership of listed companies, the pressure to be near the funds managers increases.

The Government, in particular, has offloaded the management of the superannuation of Queensland employees but have attached no conditions on where the funds are invested so 40% ends up overseas and the rest is at the behest of Sydney and Melbourne fund managers.

But Of particular interest is the quote;

"The trend is dangerous: for promotional opportunities people developing their careers now have to move to Sydney or Melbourne. A number reject these opportunities for the sake of their families and the lifestyle here."

For the same can just as easily be said of people in regional Queensland who must move to Brisbane to develop their careers.

If it is "dangerous" for this trend to be present in relation to state economies then it is equally dangerous for regions within existing states. For the only result is an increased concentration of wealth and increasing diseconomies of scale associated with the excessive concentration of jobs, people and cars.

The regions need their own states to create head office roles in their local economies and reduce the leakage from their circular flows. And the existing "other" state capitals need to take measures to stem their own leakages to SydMelb and further afield.

And when the fund managers all line up to make their pitch for the funds management contract, they should all be asked how their stuctures and weightings best serve the interests of their local state contributors.

Sydney and Melbourne might call it parochialism but if our own representatives don't pursue our interests to the max then who will?

How do "the advantages of having corporate head offices based in Queensland" and "the opportunities here" stack up against those of the alternative locations? Your figures suggest "not very well". Sydney, for example, has a dense clustering of relevant talents, services, funding sources etc which are unlikely to be matched by Brisbane/SEQ without decades of development; and the attractions such as opera which you suggest require support from business leaders ae far more widely available in Sydney than here. Why would firms choose SEQ?

Please don't suggest "Government incentives." First, it's a recipe for failure to seek to use incentives to attract firms to a sub-optimal location. Second, there's extensive evidence that firms generally make locatinal decisions on substantive gronds, and then see what they can screw from government as "incentives".

>'"Please don't suggest "Government incentives."'

C'mon Faustino. Government incentives like the Science/Tech. parks in China (mainland & Taiwan), India, Malaysia & so forth are sterling examples of a government acting as an incubator to encourage private business.

Queensland should be doing more of this. The more so these days as it's not just the state captials we're up against, it's the SE-Asian region as a whole.

"...chief executive officers, finance directors, heads of treasury, marketing directors, brand managers, corporate PR executives, company secretaries and many other senior corporate executive roles, together with their supporting staff."

Given what is happening in Victoria and NSW, isn't it obvious that Queensland is quietly getting rid of the dross? If only we could bundle up our unproductive, expensive drones and dispose of them in this way.

Beattie - if you're reading this - good one mate! Have a word in Bracksie's ear for us.

Woop, incentives are almost always discriminatory and based on a flawed “picking winners” approach. Commercial businesses and investors thrive or fail on their capacity to correctly identify and pursue profitable opportunities. The skills required for this are highly valued and are in great demand, particularly by firms and investors who operate globally. If there is a profitable opportunity available in Queensland or elsewhere, it is unlikely to be overlooked.

Nevertheless, governments and public servants with little relevant expertise frequently think that their capacity to identify and pursue viable commercial opportunities exceeds that of the businessmen whose livelihood depends on that capacity. In practice this almost invariably leads to poor investment choices at great cost to the state concerned. A classic example is Queensland’s light metals project, the Australian Magnesium Corporation. In Queensland Treasury, I directed economic and financial analyses which demonstrated that AMC couldn’t be viable. It went ahead with massive government support and collapsed with losses of $450m.

The countries you mention were starting from a very low base, without the supporting services and infrastructure available here. They also had some advantages which we don’t have, such as a vast pool of underemployed, low wage labour and generally very high savings rates with few avenues for investment.

Attempts to replicate such initiatives in Queensland and in other states have almost always been failures

Heya Faustino. So AMC is an example of a high-risk venture that failed in a big way & was something you saw coming. In retrospect, a bad decision taken by an ignorant bod. who, given the nature of politics & the amounts involved, probably had an alterior motive regardless :)

Apologies, I'm abroad for the best part of a decade now & can't qualify my view to the extent you can, but I think we've a different view on 'incentives'. I would draw the line at a joint venture (or similar relationship) with government, I agree it's high potential for failure & I disagree with the principle of government attempting such direct control over business. However, as a means of encouraging business, I believe the Qld gov. can & should be doing more.

I use the Tech. Parks as an example, simply from experience. And you're right, they are selective, intentionally so, as they target certain sectors/enterprises. And they do exploit their advantages, but that's not to say Qld isn't capable of the same. Qld labour costs, the average engineering grad. for example, are significantly
lower than Europe but just as capable. So how 'bout an incentive for the local telco equipment maker in Brisbane to take on
an additional 2 interns from UQ/QUT/etc each year, whose salaries are subsidised by Qld. gov?

Taiwanese tech. co's basing themselves in Hsinchu (as opposed to Taipei) enjoy a perk similar to this. Finish handset maker(s) have very close ties to local unis.

These are the kind of incentives I'm referring to.

Chris: Beattie can read?! the things you learn on the Internet... :)