This is a growing area. The Queensland Government does heaps more for the state than in New South Wales where private enterprise seems to take over a lot of the supporting roles to the detriment of rural towns outside of Sydney - no dollars means no services in country NSW e.g Telstra slacking off when there are no dollars outside of Sydney CBD. This leaves rural towns in NSW to either do it tough and use their brains to outwit the greedy city boys or give up and move back to the city again with all its inherent cost problems when you are small. So Queensland beckons with its low costs and easy to do business.
In 2008 we moved to Brisbane for Web work. We did some local work but are now finding our own way and getting our own business going again in a hurry. Luckily payments from NSW started coming in around this time so I was not so hard up to pay regular bills and give me a chance to adapt or return to NSW again which I did when I was kicked out. Queensland is much more advanced than when we left in 1988 to seek work in Sydney however it is still very hard to get going if you are new and unknown. Queensland is a bit old fashioned re needing to have a formal office or people will not do business with you.
Queensland is a very go-ahead place for running a small business if you can get it started up here which can be difficult if you are new. There is plenty of money in QLD for existing businesses, not poverty stricken like NSW where everyone stops paying for services and leaves us in the lurch for months unless pushed by late-fees or in-person visits! NSW is a dog in comparison to QLD's vigor for its own businesses. In September 2008, NSW may be nearing recession.
Brisbane is much more pro open-source software based development (which is what I do to a large degree) than Sydney who do mostly software development on commercial software platforms like Microsoft or Oracle. (PHP Meetup Brisbane has over 310 members whereas Sydney only has 50!) Brisbane is not scared to talk about or use PHP and MySQL so I will keep in touch with Brisbane PHP and MySQL developer communities as they are very profitable for networking in Queensland. Also the Queensland Government is looking at the advantages of developing an open-source software based ICT sector which is very encouraging after being stuffed around in Sydney in open sourced based systems which they judge are cheap and nasty which they are not! (Aug 2008)
Red Hat the largest Linux distributor has its Asia-Pacific Office in Brisbane, QLD. Red Hat has launched a new Brisbane Headquarters in August 2008, so open source is very much alive and well in Queensland compared to other states. I think I've made the right business decision to relocate our Linux-focused business to Brisbane from Sydney and Orange.
The Queensland Government is the best place to start when doing business in Queensland. They respond and have good scope for business with plenty of relevant seminars to get businesses investing in the area. They also use the internet extensively to service the state which is far-flung and stretched out - 1400km from Brisbane to Cairns/Townsville.
In late 2007, we contacted Prof Brian Lovell, ITEE, University of Queensland and are working on their open source project IAPR Commence, a conference paper management system, which was developed in PHP and MySQL by IT honours students, where I studied my BSc in 1981-87. We extended it and used it in one of our projects, donating our improvements back to the project in return for use of the open source software which saved us $1000s! This is a win-win situation of the IT industry feeding back into the academic circles to help develop students for the badly lacking industry! There is a 50% drop in software engineers graduating from Australian univerities from 2002-2007 so we as an IT industry need to start taking an interest in the universities such as the University of Queensland ITEE and start fostering local talent so the software engineering industry doesn't die in Australia and be outsourced totally to India.
As Queensland businesses are parochial and will not do business with you for ages (too laidback) unless they know you first which can lead to cashflow shortages, we are now doing business interstate in NSW and ACT to keep afloat and gave up waiting for the first Queensland job to materialise. In May 2008, we nearly got a Sydney customer to service them from Queensland via the Internet. People in Queensland from interstate are easy to deal with. Most people are only interested in helping themselves and not lending a hand to others like us, which makes it very tough to get going. Queensland is like country NSW in that it is refuses to reply to mail or phone calls to start a job. They call when they are ready which makes it impossible to get anywhere!
The yuppies (25-30 year olds) are cliquey wherever they are (NSW, QLD). Queensland seems to be overrun with yuppies in Brisbane at present due to them moving up from NSW and Victoria to save money. Everywhere in Brisbane there are people under 30 who are me-focused. This makes it very difficult for people over 40 to get on today in Brisbane who lived here in the 1980s and are more group-focused and social. Now they are all selfish and inward looking and very hard to work with unless you help them directly. They don't see the bigger picture. If you are over 40, take care as you may be pushed to one side by anti-social youths. The only positive side is young people are enthusiastic and able to change quicker than older people so Queensland has become more dynamic. See about Generation Y's habits in the economy - no assets, hyperactively living it up. I had a customer like this in Wollongong!
Queensland Employment and Industrial Relations are a lot tighter up here and you feel more protected than in New South Wales where no-one helps the worker, just big business. WorkCover Qld is more modern and uses social engineering and decentralised management, not the Dickensian English laws in New South Wales which load all costs onto central management to no real benefit. People here are much more oriented to small businesses like us and we find it easy to do business in Queensland. People although not as rich as New South Wales pay their bills and are happy for you to see them again.
Drivers' licences and other transport matters can be handled online via the Queensland Dept of Transport's Website, a great idea considering Queensland is a large state and this will reduce the paperwork and make life more efficient when dealing with Queensland Transport. Also driver's licences are much less expensive than in NSW.
The only downside is finding accommodation near transport as Brisbane transport only runs on specific routes and often cuts out after 6pm unless it is a major road, not as extensive as Sydney or Melbourne. You may need a car, take a taxi or stay overnight near the Brisbane Transit Centre to link accommodation and transport needs e.g. early interstate or interurban buses or trains.
As of about 2006, Brisbane now has a great Busway from the CBD to Logan on the southside - it only takes 30 minutes to get from the city to Eight Mile Plains, a huge improvement. Also there is Translink which lets customers travel between zones all day for a very reasonable rate. Brisbane also has a new bus/pedestrian/cycle bridge between Dutton Park near Annerley on the southside and the University of Queensland which connects to the city, Eight Mile Plains and Carindale - great for getting to the University of Queensland for people on the southside without having to go through the city and out through the congested traffic on the northside. There is a new Busway being built from the Buranda/Stones Corner area along Old Cleveland Rd all the way to Capalaba (newsletter of Gary Fenlon, MP for Greenslopes). The buses go about 80kph despite traffic jams on the nearby Pacific Motorway as the Busway is a separate road running parallel to the Pacific Motorway, making for very efficient and frequent bus services on that route.
There are no ATMs or shops in Eight Mile Plains, the nearest centre being Garden City, Upper Mt Gravatt, which is huge and right on the busway. The other ATM is at Centro Buranda shopping centre, near the PA Hospital on Ipswich Rd, Woolloongabba. Bus connections between the Camp Hill area and Eight Mile Plains are poor. The best is inbound 208 which drops you at the Buranda Busway Stop. Otherwise you have to walk to Centro Buranda, Cornwall St from Buranda Busway, O'Keefe St, about 10-15 minutes walk, and buses are only every 10-20 minutes and often 10-20 minutes late. A lot of aborigines hang around here and can be a nuisance if they are begging change or are drunk. 4 other ATMs are: Stones Corner, Coorparoo, Carina and Carindale Shopping Centre. There is a Westpac ATM at Whites Hill but they charge $2 for other banks to use it. The Buranda Busway stop is handy if you are visiting patients at the PA Hospital - there is only about a 20 minute walk from the stop to the hospital main entrance. Having a daily bus ticket is handy if you need to get to an ATM then jump on a bus and continue to work etc. 203 goes to Coorparoo where the ATM is and where a lot of buses pass which you can use to get to the busway and on to your destination. UQ buses go to the Buranda Busway stop and are usually much more empty than 111 from Eight Mile Plains.
As no weekly bus passes are available on Brisbane City Council buses (Logan City Buses sell weeklies), you need a bus ticket to the nearest train station (e.g. Buranda right next to the Busway stop) and then get a refund on the bus ticket and pay the remainder for a weekly. The other way is to buy a 'go card', introduced in Feb 2008, which allows you to charge up via credit card on the Translink Website however go cards are only available in a handful of sites in Brisbane suburbs but have dozens of sites in the CBD - go figure! On the buses, trains and ferries, just touch the go card on the reader before boarding and leaving the transport to deduct the fare or a higher fare will be charged to average costs out.
There is a good Translink deal on weekends - off-peak daily. On that you can go on the buses, trains, ferries and CityCats within Zones 1-2 for $4.10 all day - a very good deal!
There is a new Brisbane Technology Park created by the Queensland Government in Eight Mile Plains south of Brisbane which has excellent transport via the Busway and Pacific Motorway. There are many startup companies in hi-tech industries based there. We worked near here for 2 mths here during 2008 and found it has excellent facilities. (see Brisbane Technology Park Online Community) Trolltech is based in the Brisbane Technology Park, a leading Linux developer for KDE (Qt GUI library).
There is a new cross-river tunnel called North-South Bypass Tunnel being built and operated by RiverCity Motorway due to be finished by 2009 linking north and south side. The grinding machine is nicknamed 'Matilda'. The road enters around the Exhibition Grounds near Royal Brisbane Hospital and comes out near Kangaroo Point and Woolloongabba. This will cut down travel time. There is also a doubling of the Gateway Bridge due around 2010. There is also a widening of the Centenary Motorway linking Logan with Ipswich Motorway coming out at Gailes/Redbank due to be completed by 2010. Kevin Rudd (ALP) promised to complete this at the last federal election in 2007 to decrease traffic congestion from Ipswich to Brisbane and Logan. The whole South East corner of Queensland is a big building site! This is because of the huge increase in population from about 1 million to 1.8 million since 1988 to 2008 due to all the NSW and Victorian people migrating up to the warm climate and taking all the jobs!
Most internet facilities are in the CBD and are expensive. Brisbane City Council has a free wireless hotspot in the Queen Street Mall in 2004. Libraries have limited Internet capabilities e.g. Cleveland near Moreton Bay.
Mobile coverage has improved greatly for Optus in 2003-2008 in Brisbane but Telstra is still the main carrier in Queensland out of the capital city.
Transport on the Gold Coast usually runs up and down the coast. Any buses inland like to Robina from Coolangatta cut out at 8pm when you will require a taxi or car. You can catch the train to Robina from Brisbane then catch a bus to Surfers Paradise or Coolangatta. Coachtrans will pick up off along the Gold Coast and take you to Brisbane. Countrylink and interstate buses all go along the coast and stop at Coolangatta and Surfers Paradise and are usually 30-45 minutes late getting into the Transit Centre, at Roma St, Brisbane from the south. Countrylink is much easier to book over the Internet.
There are some ultra-conservative Christian groups in Brisbane to be wary of. Like all community groups, they just want to save money and get free support.
Brisbane is good for training, seminars or going to group meetings but not for making customers. In some ways, this is very much like Sydney when I was in Merrylands. Only bumping into prospects got me anywhere. I got no customers via my Website or emailing potential customers - they just ignore you or sponge off free information posted on my site. In the end I just invest in my own business and sometime if I am lucky I get a customer. The rest of marketing efforts to make customers do not work as people are too slack to get back to us or just want freebies.
It is very hard to get from the southside to the northside using public transport. The ferry is much quicker than taking the train or bus.
Camp Hill and Coorparoo are dying. The big Myer shop has closed and is empty. The site will be taken over as a busway stop. Stones Corner is much more lively with a better social atmosphere and shops.
The only traditional protestant church left in Camp Hill is Camp Hill Church of Christ (Third St). They have plans for a youth pastor and support the local chaplain in the nearby state schools - pretty active little church! It is hidden in the back streets - turn off Pryde St from Boundary Rd or into Raven St off Old Cleveland Rd then left into Pryde St to get to it. Majestic Park Baptist became Eastside Community Church and moved to Chandler in about 2004 and Camp Hill Uniting Church merged with Norman Park Uniting Church in 2008 because they could not increase numbers in Camp Hill and folded! There is also a Charismatic Church on Old Cleveland Rd, Camp Hill. This is an ageing area and most young families have moved to Redland Shire near the sea where the land is cheaper.
Interstate business is better but riskier and local sales are pathetic. There are low overheads but no sales because noone will take any risks. All you can do up here is have fun and games, not make any money. Hi-tech businesses are very small in number per capita compared to bigger states like NSW and Victoria.
This area is tougher to get into as it is distant and people are very parochial and times are tough in the sugar cane areas like Home Hill and Bundaberg. People are friendly but it takes an age to get anything going e.g. 1 year or more just to get an order or even start to do consulting due to other local problems or trips without notice due to the weather!
In 2005, equipment and phone lines tend to be pretty old and unmaintained so it is very difficult to do anything serious in this area due to lack of money and motivation to invest in their businesses - very old fashioned! Local video stores provide expensive internet and internet dialup speeds are usually around 28-40kbps due to noise on lines - no broadband in Marian or Home Hill, only Ayr, Townsville, Cairns, Mackay and Bundaberg. But there are openings to install broadband routers as more people up there get online. Broadband is very popular in country Queensland. Tropical conditions like cyclones and severe flooding can also hold up deals or even hinder getting to or from the locations like Port Douglas or Home Hill. In 2008, there is broadband in Home Hill and Ayr etc. Mining towns round Mackay have highly paid IT jobs as they cannot get anyone to move up there.
Places like Home Hill and Ayr in the Burdekin, 1 hour south of Townsville, often have hints of investors like major golf complexes but one wonders when these ventures will get off the ground. Many property speculators were snapping up ultra cheap properties in Home Hill due to a price slump in 2003 when the price of sugar dropped through the floor to 6c/lb whereas US farmers were getting their sugar subsidised to 20c/lb and the Australian Government could not get sugar onto the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement agenda. Brazil with its cheap labour and plentiful land due to devouring the rainforest is proving a formidable foe. 15-20 years ago, we let them in and were training them and selling them farm machinery and now they turn around and become our competitors. It is not wise to sit on one's laurels. Always be vigilant to offshore threats from 3rd world countries creeping up on our primary producers. Local sugar cane producers wanted to produce ethanol through the local sugar mill so people could buy 10% ethanol petrol for their cars and motorbikes which was cheaper and cleaner environmentally but the Australian Government and oil refineries created a scare campaign so it didn't go ahead until 2005 when oil prices skyrocketed due to the Iraq war. Now 10% ethanol petrol is available everywhere.
As of 2004, Home Hill now has a Bendigo Bank! Before that there was only ANZ and a Credit Union and many shops had closed. It took Home Hill community 2 years to raise the funds to get the community bank going!
Cairns CBD is a risky area as there are a lot of pennyless European backpackers there who will pinch valuables out of your luggage at the drop of a hat. Only help was the Cairns Police who can take down details of losses and if they are found return them to you COD if you leave a forwarding number and address. Bundaberg Police were very laid-back and not interested in helping very much!
CDMA coverage is better in this area. Optus GPRS coverage is very flakey around Home Hill and North Bundaberg (north of the bridge is poor or impossible, south is OK). It is very hard to get a mobile phone except in larger cities like Mackay and Townsville. Little towns seem to just sell pre-paids and have no interest in porting your number to another carrier. Next G will be the only coverage now that CDMA is gone.
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