Businesses flock to Queensland

Queensland has been dubbed the "Peter Pan" state for its ability to draw young, able-bodied workers. With projected economic growth of 5.25 per cent this financial year, Queensland is growing faster than the rest of Australia.

As well as attracting thousands of new residents Queensland is also becoming increasingly popular with business, particularly Brisbane.

According to property company Savills, Brisbane's office space vacancy rates are hovering around 0.3 per cent and are not expected to rise until 2009.

Big names such as Virgin Blue, Macarthur Coal, Vale (the world's second largest mining company), publisher Wiley Australia, software producer Mincom and chemical company Campbell Bros Ltd all based their national HQ in Brisbane.

There are also plenty of re-location stories too including Zest Health Clubs and Boeing Australia.

Zest Health Clubs moved its HQ to Brisbane from Sydney last year between September and December. Zest's executive team was based in Sydney when it started out five years ago by taking over three existing chains in different parts of Australia.

At the time of writing this story, Zest had 27 clubs, including nine in Queensland, seven in South Australia and 12 in Western Australia.

Steve Pettit, general manager of product and marketing, said the company had always planned for growth and had decided Brisbane was the place to grow from.

"The fitness industry in Brisbane is growing exponentially and, with the population boom that's being experienced and the obesity epidemic that society is currently facing, Brisbane offers opportunity in terms of our ability to grow," Mr Pettit said.

IT and membership services were already based in Brisbane and were then joined by finance, product & marketing, human resources and the administrative departments.

"Now every day we can walk through our clubs, which is just fantastic. We really get a grassroots feel for what's going on and that was a key driver in making the move to Brisbane - to be a lot closer to our clubs and to our members..."

Eight staff made the move from Sydney to Brisbane. Six who chose not to move were replaced with new staff in Brisbane.

"I'm loving the experience of being in Brisbane. It's very different to Sydney and, so far, everyone who has moved is just raving about the experience. That's great, because it helps people who moved to feel like they made the right decision," Mr Pettit said.

In February 2008 Boeing Australia Ltd celebrated its 10th anniversary in Brisbane. In 1998, the company moved its operations in Victoria and NSW to new headquarters at Boeing House in Brisbane's CBD. Since then, its Queensland workforce has increased from 150 employees to more than 1750.

Boeing president, David Withers, says the anniversary is a milestone because Boeing was one of the first businesses to relocate to Brisbane.

"Brisbane came to the front in the end because of the relationship we were able to establish with the Queensland Government and there were tax incentives - particularly in payroll tax - that made the move attractive," Mr Withers said.

"We were the lead and Virgin followed behind us and that formed a good core to the aerospace industry in Brisbane, Mr Withers said.

"I'd be quick to point out you don't move somewhere just because of tax. You move somewhere because you can see a benefit of the city.

"Brisbane had very good universities - ones that we could get engaged with. It had a government very keen to grow its aerospace footprint and we had our major defence customer with their biggest base in Amberley.

"We could get reasonable real estate and we could get access to an untapped skills base that we also felt we could influence and develop further.

"We've now got 17 schools around Queensland teaching aerospace subjects," Mr Withers said.

Boeing's move also meant reaching out to the local community including sponsorship of The Queensland Orchestra, Mission Australia and DrugArm in Queensland.

"People overseas always assume that you're based in Sydney but you get past that when you explain that Brisbane's an hour (by air) north of Sydney," Mr Withers said.

National kitchen and laundry appliances retailer, Kleenmaid, was founded on the Sunshine Coast in 1985 by Andrew Young.

Kleenmaid has 400 staff, including 120 based at HQ, and 32 stores giving it a presence in every state of Australia. Not surprisingly, Kleenmaid made BRW magazine's Top 500 Private Companies of Australia list.

Kleenmaid's general manager of human resources, Nerida Robertson, says despite its growth the company has no plans to move its headquarters from Maroochydore.

"We have a state-of-the-art training auditorium based at the support centre so our national franchisees and staff have the advantage of travelling to the Sunshine Coast for their conferences or training," she said.

"With the Brisbane airport just over an hour away, it's also easy to travel overseas, which some staff do as part of their role in maintaining relationships and buying schedules with a range of international manufacturing partners."