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Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 10:54 pm
by Matt Flynn
As a Darwin resident, has Inpex been good for you?

I ask, because aside from people who have a job with Inpex or associated industry, others are telling me they are not happy - living costs are up, staff are harder to hang on to, and overall business in Darwin has been pretty much the same.

Is it premature or wrong to be negative?

Or is this big development not creating a better life for the majority?

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:50 am
by Bowser
bought a unit of the plan the plan 2 years ago banking on an inpex sign off. now get 750pw from some one ,so is working for me.

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:22 am
by ken_dog
Few mates working there now, on good coin. got to spend it somewhere.......

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:39 am
by cjgp
I dont think Impex has really put the cost of living up.. Not too many of their projects going on that would entail bringing lots of people in at the moment, it seems to be just locals doing most of the work at the moment.

Yep business are finding it hard to keep staff. There are lots of projects on in the NT that are paying top dollar, AND locals are getting a good pick to get those jobs so people move up. Maybe businesses need to be a little more strategic when it comes to hiring and retaining good staff. Too many rely on paying the basic wage and hope for the best,

I think on the whole too, there are just not enough people around to service everyone, and that is not only limited to Darwin. No where in australia has enough hospital staff or aged care staff. People can do easier jobs for more money. People import staff for those jobs, while we pay big $$$$ to have thousand of potential staff sit in detention centres. (Hope nobody missess that baited hook)

Some business are doing it tough. After years of charging top dollar there is now lots of competition about for pretty well everything and businesses were not prepared for that. Cometition that compunds the staff turnover,

Rent though is very high, but I dont know why. Drive past any big block of units at night and about half the lights never go on. They are just never used or offered for lease. That keeps the rents artificially high as there is high demand on those that are offered.

For me impex makes not a lot of difference, my mortgage is still the same, I still get paid not a bad rate and I make my own fuel so the escalating cost of that isnt killing me

Chris

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:42 am
by DOUG
Nah it's poop everything is too expensive when all this boom is done and
Dusted in 10 to 15 years and house prices are through the roof more so than now who will wanna or could afford to live here all these people will have $700000 investment properties that they won't be able to afford to pay off and the market will crash and all the over priced houses will drop and people will be broke everywhere !! My thoughts anyways ;) Then all the true locals will suffer everything will go up in price to accommodate the cost off living !! River babe should still be right tho won't effect him :)
Mate works in this industry cough "kendog" and his a tight arse so they won't spend there money here ;)

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:44 am
by seano
I am glad I brought a house a couple of years ago, got a mate paying $500 a week rent in a cr.p street in a cr.p Palmy suburb. Bugger that.

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:54 am
by john d
As a darwin resident i,ve not seen any change,
The cost of living will always go up.
People will always leave due to the "cost of living" the grass is always greener etc.
Employers will hold on to workers if they look after them.
Half the problem is the media talking cr.p for the sake of selling papers and real estate agents pushing for higher sales prices and rent.
As soon as it was anounced they were predicting great increases in THERE profits.
Two neighbours units up for sale with little intrest due to redicules prices 450k+ for 2br unit
I dont see how anyone can be complaning allready as this project has only just started.
If this continues mabey it will be a bit more crowded down in tassie for you Matt

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:59 am
by ken_dog
ha ha Doug, thats a wage earned interstate that im dragging back to spend in our sleepy little Darwin. :angel:

Must admit i have applied for a few positions at/with the Inpex project, and im pleased the "Locals first" policy has been to date fairly sternly stressed, not just a bullshlt claim made whilst planning.

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:22 pm
by cjgp
Doug prolly a silly question but how will Mr Riverbabe do well out of it?

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 12:31 pm
by DOUG
Good question :) I dunno haha

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 1:44 pm
by shaggs
Real estate agents are to blame for the price of housing increase
You have to remember they get paid percentage so the bigger the price the more they get paid,only makes sense they are going to inflate prices and have been driving the market higher Australia wide for the last 20 years
The original jump in a lot of things was when duty of care took a hold of business and workers ,you basicly needed two workers to do ones job because you cant work alone on a lot of things and that price was handed down to where else,the consumer
Greed is a big thing with a lot of business in Darwin and is their downfall
Look at all the buisiness's complaining about people buying online
With the huge mark up they have on some items what do they expect
I myself don't mind paying a reasonable mark up just to have the convenience of it being here,even though it never is 75% of the items I want they have to get in anyway
Good buisness is about having smarts and a lot of those around Darwin will get their share from Inpex but when it's all over only the real smart ones will survive I feel

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:45 am
by fishfanatic
I feel it's a bit oversimplistic to merely blame real estate agents for the house price increases as is all porice increases. It totally ignores other factors like government (Fed/State/Local) taxes, stamp duties as well as dozens of other factors like geographical location, land supply, the availability of employment etc.

Australian business however needs to pull it's finger out of it's bum in relation to prices of goods and services.
This is where the current "buy Australian" business drive (Harvey Norman etc) goes wrong. Business wants to be able to dictate to the consumer to "buy Australian" even if the product is more expensive than online. This is why the toothless ACCC got involved :P
Instead of unfairly keeping prices artificially high they(business) should be screaming at the government who quietly sits back and earns record amounts of revenue on GST, import duty/stamp duty and dozens of other taxes that impact on prics of goods and services while still raising taxes more.
We would have to one of most overtaxed/overgoverned nations in the world with the greatest number of politicians :jester: , getting some of the highest monetary rewards. In all fairness if politicians had to get paid on what they produce or their efficency they would be out of a job :mrgreen: . I suppose that is why they are in politics - not many would in my opinion survive in the competitive "dog eat dog" world of private enterprise.
We in Australia are willing to accept sub standard politicians :jester: so we get the standard we deserve. We regularly accept that politicians lie yet we say "naturally he/she's a politician". We need to collectively decide :idea: not to vote for liars once we start doing that we send the signal we expect a higher moral standard and hopefully we will get one. :mrgreen:

In answer to Matt's question about Inpex...well have not gained anything out of it yet BUT hopefully will in the future. I dont think we can stop progress BUT if we can shape and control it in a positive way rather than let it baloon out without control then it can prove beneficial. Sorry Matt for hijacking your post :P :mrgreen:
shaggs wrote:Real estate agents are to blame for the price of housing increase
You have to remember they get paid percentage so the bigger the price the more they get paid,only makes sense they are going to inflate prices and have been driving the market higher Australia wide for the last 20 years
The original jump in a lot of things was when duty of care took a hold of business and workers ,you basicly needed two workers to do ones job because you cant work alone on a lot of things and that price was handed down to where else,the consumer
Greed is a big thing with a lot of business in Darwin and is their downfall
Look at all the buisiness's complaining about people buying online
With the huge mark up they have on some items what do they expect
I myself don't mind paying a reasonable mark up just to have the convenience of it being here,even though it never is 75% of the items I want they have to get in anyway
Good buisness is about having smarts and a lot of those around Darwin will get their share from Inpex but when it's all over only the real smart ones will survive I feel

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 9:06 am
by nomad
Yeah I think Doug is right on the money (pun intended)
A few people will make a killing on real estate but it will turn to poop once the boom bursts.
Like all real estate, it is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. Look at the US at the moment, there are houses just abandoned and left to rot because they cant pay for it.
Agents have no control over housing prices. They do earn more for a higher priced sale but thats not the problem.

We pay more than any other city for fuel and the food quality is poop as well.
Why? Because we put up with it and there is no competition
Ever noticed that when they post the fuel prices for capital cities around Oz on tv, that Darwin is always left off?
We are paying 20c/l more than any other city yet we cop it sweet and blame transport costs. It doesn’t cost 20c/l to transport fuel here.
I just wish I bought up big when I had the chance.

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 11:16 am
by semper
From what i can see Inpex so far has been only good for Darwin, local economy needed a boost and hasnt yet affected prices or labour shortages etc.

this will change pretty soon as the workforce increases, rental market is already getting tight. Give it 12 months and there will be issues and pain for those not associated with the project (myself included).

Re: Has Inpex been good for you?

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 12:30 pm
by DOUG
A boost for local economy dunno about that there's been a few big company's go under recently and a few more that may not hold on till this so called boom takes off
I'm in the building industry and I can tell you it's quiet around town were only a small show and we have had other larger companies ringing us trying to drum up work !!!