Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional legal opinion.
Briefing Paper 7/2010 by John Wilkinson
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SUMMARY
Presented in this paper is something of an historical and contemporary
inventory of business activity in Australia's two leading cities. It does not
present a complete picture of economic activity, still less of such issues as
the 'liveability' of Sydney and Melbourne. Its focus is narrow and the
conclusions that can be drawn from it are therefore limited. The paper's
findings include:
The relative positions of Sydney and Melbourne, as Australia's leading
cities, has changed over time. In this respect their relationship is neither
fixed nor subject to any natural laws of advantage or disadvantage. Nor indeed
is the relationship between them and Australia's other major cities.
[7]
While Sydney was the first city of Australia (and the foundation location
of businesses such as Westpac and AMP), it was overtaken (in population) by
Melbourne during, and immediately after, the gold rush. Melbourne’s
prosperity not only resulted in it becoming the financial centre of Australia
during the first half of the twentieth century, but led to its functioning as
the temporary national capital.[2(a)]
Discriminatory tariffs led to Melbourne having the highest concentration of
manufacturing amongst the capital cities of Australia, a position which it
currently maintains.[2(c)]
In the first half of the twentieth century a majority of companies had
their headquarters in Melbourne. This situation was reversed during the second
half of the twentieth century. As manufacturing declined and the property and
finance sector expanded, the majority of large Australian companies located
their headquarters in Sydney.[2(c)]
Melbourne’s ascendancy, in population, was effectively ended by the
great depression of the 1890s, with 50,000 people leaving for other colonies.
From the first decade of the twentieth century, the ascendancy in population
returned to Sydney.[2(c)]
Although the long-run average growth rate for both NSW and Victoria is
approximately the same, the opening years of the twenty-first century have seen
Victoria’s growth rate exceed that of NSW.[3]
Tariff reduction has seen a growth in the number of large importing firms,
the majority of which are based in Sydney.[5(h)]
Melbourne is currently the location for the leading mining company in
Australia - BHP Billiton.[5(d)]
Telstra, which is the national leader in telecommunications, has its
headquarters in Melbourne. This dates from the time when it was the
nation’s capital, between 1901 and 1927.[5(l)]
Ascendancy in freight transport is split between Melbourne and Sydney. Port of
Melbourne is the largest container port in Australia, while Sydney is the
centre of airfreight transport.[5(i)]
Although recent Victorian governments have made concerted efforts to
attract visitors, NSW attracts the greater number of domestic and international
visitors.[5(k)]
The Kennett government's facilitation of commercial ownership of electricity
and gas production assisted the expansion of NSW electricity and gas concerns
into Victoria.[5(m)]
While, in the early twentieth century, newspaper production was fairly
evenly split between Melbourne and Sydney, the late twentieth century saw both
a consolidation of print production – and a consolidation of television
production – in Sydney.[5(n)]
Melbourne is host to arguably the biggest domestic agribusiness concern in
Australia: AWB Ltd. Two NSW-based large agribusiness operations have emerged in
recent years: Ricegrowers and Graincorp.[5(o)]
In their 2006 publication, Melbourne's Second Speed Economy, Birrell at
al tracked developments in the past decade or so in Sydney and Melbourne,
comparing their track record with the "resource driven states of Western
Australia and Queensland". They found that, while there was 'no room for
complacency in Melbourne", it was the case that 'Sydney's slowdown had
been sharper" in the post-Olympic period. On the other hand, the same
report also noted problems with the Victorian government's strategies based on
'rapid population growth'. Population growth "could not be
guaranteed", it was said, "especially given a possible net exodus of
people to Queensland and Western Australia". The other problem was that
"such growth deflects from the challenge of transforming the Victorian
economy into one that is globally competitive". [6]
In the opening years of the twenty-first century, Sydney remains the city
with the largest population and leads Melbourne in 11 out of 17 standard
categories of employment.[7]
