Business News - WA
At Close of Business podcast October 4 2024
Nadia Budihardjo and Tom Zaunmayr discuss an ambitious plan to improve Australia's bequest rate.
Plus all the latest on a $360 million Cottesloe development; John Carey's hostilities with Basil Zempilas; and Fremantle's historic Forthergill's building sold.
- Broadcast on:
- 04 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) All the latest business news from WA, deliver daily. At close of business, news briefing. Good afternoon and welcome to the "Outclose of Business" podcast. I'm Sam Jones and I'll be reading a Friday headlines. Serona Urban has unveiled its designs for a residential project on Station Street with a $360 million proposal out for public comment. The developer lodged the application with the state government's significant development assessment unit pathway today. Serona proposes to build a luxury 128-room hotel and 125 departments across two buildings of 14 and 16 stories. The proposed project also includes rooftop amenities and food and beverage offerings on a 3,200-square-meter site opposite Codderslow Railway Station. Serona Urban Managing Director, Matthew McNally, said the project focused on urban regeneration of the area while taking the heat off Codderslow Beach. Housing Minister and member for Perth John Kerry has renewed hostilities with the city of Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zemplus, accusing him of using the city to push his state political agenda. Mr. Kerry hit out at Mr. Zemplus's use of city branding to promote a parliamentary petition he tabled on Monday, opposing the state's push to build a primary school on the Queen's Garden Car Park site in East Perth. Mr. Zemplus, who is also Liberal candidate for churches and next year's state election, is listed as principal petitioner on the A petition titled "Support Private Property Rights," which has garnered more than 1,300 signatures since it was posted on September 30. Any member of the public can lodge a petition with Parliament, but all petitions put to Parliament must be facilitated by a sitting member. Mr. Zemplus's is facilitated by Liberal MP Neil Thompson, a fact Mr. Kerry has taken issue with. Mr. Kerry has repeatedly come to blows with Mr. Zemplus and the city of Perth over the location of the East Perth Primary School. He used a LinkedIn post to accuse the Lord Mayor of blurring the lines between his Liberal and city responsibilities. And finally, Fremantle's historic father-gills building on High Street, constructed during the Gold Boom, has sold for $4.2 million to a local family. DB International owned by East Fremantle's Julia and Tedoro Del Barrello bought the heritage-listed building from Avion Nominees. Asset documents show that Alistair Muir and James Fitzgerald jointly owned Avion Nominees, which pocketed $4.2 million from the sale of Thirst2 High Street in Fremantle's West End. The two-story Federation free classical style property is historically referred to as the Father-gills building, which was named after the prominent Father-gill family at the turn of the last century. The property was owned by Captain Edward Henry, Father-gill, a merchant and Mariner, according to the state heritage records. That's all for headlines today. You can read more at businessnews.com.au. Coming up on the podcast, Nadia Budihajo and Tom Zun, I had to discuss Australia's low-bequest rate. Celebrate business leaders, entrepreneurs and trailblazers with business news events. With our flagship event series bespoke online events, webinars, book launches and Gala Awards programs, our forums showcase the policies and issues affecting Western Australia within industry and government. Our events are your platforms to engage and connect with the Western Australian business community. Visit businessnews.com.au/events for more information. Welcome back to our Clothes Business. I'm Nadia Budihajo and today I'm joined by Tom Zawmiah, who wrote about Australia's bequest rate and an ambitious plan to grow the figure. So, Tom, how does Australia compare to the rest of the world? Not that world, to be frank. Australia, we tend to be quite nation. Well, world leading when it comes to a lot of economic factors, wealth, average incomes, even wealth distribution, those kind of factors. But, I guess it'd be quite surprising if some people find that our bequest rates, that's our rate of giving to charities, nonprofits is actually pretty low. Compared to other first world countries, usually we're comparing ourselves to USA, UK, those kind of areas. So, on a per capita basis and on a percentage of wealth basis, it's significantly smaller than those markets. And so, we've had a report come out kind of delving into that a bit. So, of course, we've had a look into that and talked to people around, I guess, why that is the case and what we need to do or what we can do to try and change that to get a few more people putting money into our nonprofit sector. You mentioned you spoke to some people about that. Who did you speak to and what did they have to say about this? Yeah, so, JB Ware is the outlet that kind of put this annual report together on essentially on philanthropy on the bequest rate in Australia. So, that report found that there's going to be about $5.4 trillion changing hands in Australia over the next two decades. It's a huge wealth transfer from my parents, your parents, for example, onto the next generation, right? So, they've accumulated all that and they're passing it on. Out of that, though, I guess, for this year, we're looking about $150 billion worth of estates to be gifted. And out of that, only about 1% is expected to flow through to nonprofits. So, that's people leaving money for wills in their wills, for charities and nonprofits, for example. So, that sounds like, I guess on the raw figures, it sounds like quite a lot, $1.3 billion. But when you compare that 1% figure, if you look over elsewhere in the world, like the USA, for example, proportion of inheritance left a charity there is at 4.4% and in the UK, it's 3.7%, so, well, well in front of where we sit. And you spoke to a JB Ware consultant, John McClod, about this, and he mentioned some things that could be done to address the, I guess, the hurdles and the challenges in this space. What did he have to say? Yeah, so one of the big issues in Australia and is a bit different, particularly in the US and UK, is around the taxation treatment of estates. So, they're putting a submission in at the moment to the federal government in terms of what they'd like to see to change that and can read all that in the story. But one of the other things and more interesting ones we talk about quite a lot is just the visibility. Australia, we tend to have this whole tall poppy syndrome kind of thing going on, when someone gives a lot of money like an Andrew Forrest or like a Gina Rine Hart to a charity we tend to knock them down and saying they're just doing it for tax purposes. And while that's true, you do get tax benefits out of it, you know, the other day they are still giving money to charity. And so, the point that JB Ware's making and the point that a lot of people are making is that more people that can be seen publicly to be giving money away to nonprofits, the more people that's going to encourage you to do that. And we have actually seen that in practice work. There was a story I wrote a few months ago on the Mount Burdett Foundation in Esperance, which is using funds from the farmer of the late farmer, Chris Rux, who died a few years ago and left his whole farm to charity. And so money from that farm is going to charities and other farmers who've seen that and been involved in that have then on the off the back of that gone, "Oh, we actually want to do that as well." So it really does work just speaking about it and just being visible about it. And so that's one of the main, I guess, the main aims of this report is to encourage more people to come out and say, "Yes, I am giving money to nonprofits, and this is how much I'm giving, and this is how I'm doing it." Another really interesting read from you, Tom, about something in the economy that people just don't really think about. And you've done the research as well as shown in the magazine. So that's the September 30th edition of the Business News magazine that's out now. All listeners can read the story online at businessnews.com.au. Thank you for listening and thanks, Tom, for joining me. Thank you. The latest business news, deliver daily. Subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. For all the latest business news, visit businessnews.com.au. [music] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]