1300 672728
While the critics were adamant that the Brisbane West Wellcamp Airport had as much chance of taking off as one of those figurative white elephants, Mr Wagner and his brothers put $200 million and the muscle of their international construction, building services and manufacturing group behind the project.
Two years on from the opening of the gleaming terminal building, the airport has a designation code of WTB and a future that hardly anyone envisaged.
Except the Wagners.
“The … local council didn’t have the money or the foresight or the vision, the state government doesn’t do airports and the federal government, you know, if they do anything at all they take years and years to get around to it,” said 56-year-old Mr Wagner, who drove the development. “So we decided to do it ourselves. It felt right. It has always felt right.”
Treasurer Scott Morrison has foreshadowed new measures to encourage affordable rental housing after NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes broke Liberal ranks by advocating reform of negative gearing.
Mr Stokes was roundly condemned by his federal Liberal colleagues after calling for changes to negative gearing to discourage investors from crowding- out owner-occupiers.
Malcolm Turnbull led a chorus of rebuttals even as the Prime Minister’s wife, Lucy, spoke on the same stage as Mr Stokes, endorsing his concerns about “inter- and intra-generational” equity in the housing market. Ms Turnbull, who is the chief commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission, later declined to answer questions about her attitude to negative gearing. The advocacy organisation she formerly led, the Committee for Sydney, backed Mr Stokes.
The minister said NSW was doing everything it could to increase housing supply but that was not enough to address housing affordability, and instead pointed to investors who negatively geared multiple properties.
Read more: Government may be considering a successor to the National Rental Affordability Scheme
From 1 July 2016 the Great Start Grant became known as the Queensland First Home Owners’ Grant.
The Queensland Government also announced a one-off, 12-month boost of $5,000 to the grant, which since 1 July 2016, is now worth $20,000.
Get into your first home sooner
The Queensland First Home Owners' Grant is a state government initiative to help first home owners to get their new first home sooner.
Depending on the date of your contract, you’ll get $15,000 or $20,000 towards buying or building your new house, unit or townhouse (valued at less than $750,000). You can even buy off the plan or choose to build yourself. It’s a great opportunity to buy or build a new home in Queensaland's great state.
How a Queensland First Home Owners' Grant can help you.
Mindful that successful investment is about maximising returns and minimising exposure and cost, the various states Land Tax thresholds play an often overlooked part, in investment property decision making.
Land tax is assessed on the sum total of an individuals land holdings in any given state. (EG if you owned two taxable properties in a given state with taxable values of $200,000 and $300,000 respectively, the tax is assessed on $500,000 at the rate shown in the table above.)
2016 - Current State by State Land Tax Thresholds Table.
Separate land tax rates may apply for Trusts. Absentee owner surcharges may applicable & Exemptions may apply
(Accurate at time of publishing)
Australia's first privately-built airport has announced weekly international freight flights will begin next month.
Cathay Pacific will operate the jumbo service between Toowoomba's Wellcamp Airport, 120km west of Brisbane, and Hong Kong.
The freight-only service is scheduled to begin on November 22 2016.
Airport developer and co-owner John Wagner said the service was a tremendous opportunity for the region's agricultural sector, and would see chilled beef and other perishables flown direct from local producers to customers in Asia.
(This further strengthens long term investment property opportunities in Toowoomba as it takes another step forward in employment and population growth - See examples of Investment Property to benefit from the continuing commercial growth of WellCamp Airport)
"This really is the culmination of two years of very hard work to convince an airline to run out of a regional centre in Australia," Mr Wagner said.
"I think what Cathay really worked out after that initial trial flight was that the market is here and the people of this region are proactive and are prepared to look outside the square in order to get their produce off to Asia, where half the world's population lives," Mr Wagner said.
"Initially for this first service, it'll probably be about 35 to 40 jobs direct at the airport, but the flow-on effect is mind-blowing and what people don't really understand is what this means for our region, both from a jobs perspective and from the perspective of economic prosperity and confidence," he said.
Full story - Source ABC News