Daniel Gannon is one of South Australia’s leading and most influential industry executives - an expert and strategic leader in membership-based organisations.
Over the past seven years, Daniel has spearheaded successful historical campaigns to abolish commercial stamp duty, reform land tax and defeat punitive taxes on CBD car parks and banks. Advocacy outcomes like these have increased South Australia’s investment attractiveness - particularly the state’s property and real estate sectors.
In 2020, Daniel was named one of South Australia's 50 Most Influential People and Top 10 Real Estate Heavyweights, while in 2018, he was named one of South Australia’s Top 40 Leaders Under 40 and one of the state’s Top 50 Powerbrokers.
“Often credited as one of the most strategic operators in South Australia,” the 2020 list says of Daniel, “[he is] a forceful yet smooth operator.”
Daniel has worked across Local, State and Federal Government policy spheres throughout his career and has embedded himself in membership-based organisations. He has also driven significant change in the property and investment industry as the South Australian Executive Director of the Property Council of Australia – now arguably the state’s most powerful association.
In this episode, Daniel shares his journey from growing up living in a caravan with his family, to how he dreamed of being an architect, to working in the family business in retirement villages, to taking on his former bosses Steven Marshall and Rob Lucas in a battle to squash land tax changes. Daniel is Fierce in promoting South Australia and trying to attract people and businesses from all over the world to our great state. He shares his thoughts on what the workplace will look like moving forward, and the impact people working from home will have on all industries. Daniel also speaks about the impacts of the pandemic in the market from a landlord to the shop front and provides us with some statistics about how we are faring post-pandemic.
Where to find Daniel Gannon
Join the conversation on Synergy IQ LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram (@synergyiq) and please support other leaders by liking, subscribing and sharing this podcast.
Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us.
Say hello to our host Daniel on LinkedIn.
Books and podcasts mentioned on this episode:
Daniel Gannon is one of South Australia’s leading and most influential industry executives - an expert and strategic leader in membership-based organisations.
Over the past seven years, Daniel has spearheaded successful historical campaigns to abolish commercial stamp duty, reform land tax and defeat punitive taxes on CBD car parks and banks. Advocacy outcomes like these have increased South Australia’s investment attractiveness - particularly the state’s property and real estate sectors.
In 2020, Daniel was named one of South Australia's 50 Most Influential People and Top 10 Real Estate Heavyweights, while in 2018, he was named one of South Australia’s Top 40 Leaders Under 40 and one of the state’s Top 50 Powerbrokers.
“Often credited as one of the most strategic operators in South Australia,” the 2020 list says of Daniel, “[he is] a forceful yet smooth operator.”
Daniel has worked across Local, State and Federal Government policy spheres throughout his career and has embedded himself in membership-based organisations. He has also driven significant change in the property and investment industry as the South Australian Executive Director of the Property Council of Australia – now arguably the state’s most powerful association.
In this episode, Daniel shares his journey from growing up living in a caravan with his family, to how he dreamed of being an architect, to working in the family business in retirement villages, to taking on his former bosses Steven Marshall and Rob Lucas in a battle to squash land tax changes. Daniel is Fierce in promoting South Australia and trying to attract people and businesses from all over the world to our great state. He shares his thoughts on what the workplace will look like moving forward, and the impact people working from home will have on all industries. Daniel also speaks about the impacts of the pandemic in the market from a landlord to the shop front and provides us with some statistics about how we are faring post-pandemic.
Where to find Daniel Gannon
Join the conversation on Synergy IQ LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram (@synergyiq) and please support other leaders by liking, subscribing and sharing this podcast.
Access SynergyIQ Website to get to know more about us.
Say hello to our host Daniel on LinkedIn.
Books and podcasts mentioned on this episode:
Welcome to Creating synergy where we explore what it takes to transform. We are powered by Synergy IQ. Our mission is to help leaders create world class businesses where people are safe, valued, inspired and fulfilled. We can only do this with our amazing community. So thank you for listening.
Daniel Franco:Hi there synergizes and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today on the show we have a really great man by the name of Daniel Gannon on the show. Daniel is one of South Australia's leading and most influential industry executives, an expert and strategic leader in membership based organizations. Over the past seven years, Daniel has spearheaded successful and historic campaigns to abolish commercial stamp duty, reform land tax and defeat punitive taxes on CBD car parks and banks. Advocacy outcomes like these have increased South Australia's investment attractiveness, particularly in the state's property and real estate sectors. In 2020, Daniel was named one of South Australia's top 50 Most Influential People and top 10 Real Estate heavyweights. While in 2018, he was named one of South Australia's top 40 leaders under 40 and one of the state's top 50 power brokers often accredited as one of the most strategic operators in South Australia. The 2020 list of Daniel says is a forceful yet smooth operator. Throughout his career, Daniel has worked across local state and federal government policy spheres and an embedded himself in membership based organizations. He has also driven significant change in the property and investment industry as the South Australian executive director of The Property Council of Australia, now arguably the state's most powerful association. In this episode, Daniel shares his journey from growing up and living in a caravan with his family to how he dreamed of being an architect to working in the family business in retirement villages to taking on his former bosses Stephen Marshall and Robert Lucas in their battle to squash the land tax charges. Daniel is fierce in promoting South Australia and China attract people and business from all over the world to our great state. He shares his thoughts on what the workplace would look like moving forward and the types of impacts that people working from home will have on all industries. Then you also speaks about the impacts of the pandemic in the market, from the landlord to the shop front, as well as providing us some statistics about how we're faring post pandemic. If you love the episode, which I'm sure you will be sure to hit subscribe button and check us out at SynergyIQ.com.au and synergy IQ and all the social media outlets. So welcome back to the creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have Daniel Gannon on the show. Welcome, Daniel. Thanks for having me, Daniel, executive director of The Property Council.
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, look, The Property Council just for a bit of background for some of your listeners. We are a membership based organization and not for profit company that represents landlords basically. So we represent people who have skin in the game with commercial property, residential, industrial, retirement living in retail now that's a lot of Yes. In really simple terms, we are different things to different people on different days, but we are property focused,
Daniel Franco:beautiful. Now so before we get into the full Property Council, remit and everything that you guys do and are doing for the people of South Australia In Australia. I want to just rattle off a few statistics there are a few little not statistics. Few little accolades, Mr. Daniel get going. So in 2008, he was named one of the South Australia's most top 100 influential people, one of essays, top 40 leaders under 41 of South Australia's top 50 power brokers, and then recently one of the top 50 most influential people to get a head wobble going on over there.
Daniel Gannon:These these lists, they are quite humbling. They're a little bit embarrassing, as well. But to be honest, my game at The Property Council is about currency. It's about conductivity. It's about relationships. So what we do on any given day is we our job is to convince politicians and decision makers at local state and federal government levels to be really careful with legislation or policymaking. That has an impact on the property industry here in South Australia. So just give you a bit of an economic context. Properties South Australia's biggest private sector employer employs about one in five people in this state in supplies salary to one in six people here, it contributes almost 12% of GSP. So, what that means for us is that when we do sit down with politicians, when we do sit down with decision makers, to provide some very careful advice to them, we do so on behalf of the state's economy, because the property industry plays a really important role within that economy. And if and if my job, on occasion means carrying a level of influence to be able to do that, then that's okay with me, but it is a little bit embarrassing.
Daniel Franco:We, you kind of need to have that influence you 25%. If you represent 25% of the people in their working jobs, I mean, you'd want to have a little bit of influence in your role.
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, and look, if you didn't, then you'd be doing your job poorly. And you'll be getting outcomes and results, particularly on behalf of our members. Our members in Adelaide very different to property owners in places like Sydney and Melbourne because the type of landlords here are private investors, they've got private skin in the game. And we've got a different markets play within. Whereas if you look in places like Sydney and Melbourne, the big property owners over there, institutional property owners, they're syndicates, their superannuation funds. So the difference between our market and theirs is that private skin in the game, and when you've got that sort of skin in the game, it changes the way that you think and changes the way that you do business. And as a direct result that changes the way that we advocate to government. And because we are represented, we are representing products.
Daniel Franco:Yes. Brilliant. All right. Let's talk about Daniel, the human being. Sure. Tell us a bit about your background. How did you get to where you are today? I do know a little bit about your background. You moved around a lot as a kid. Mm hmm. Is that how you ended up in the Property Council has been interested in in property itself?
Daniel Gannon:Look, we um, yeah, I've got quite a unique, slightly unusual background. I was born in a place called West Wyalong, which is in the middle of nowhere in New South Wales. A lot of people might have travelled through West Wyalong on the way to Sydney, but we, we were living in a caravan for my first four years. So my father and his father carpenters, you know, we come from a strong family lineage of carpenters and farmers but dad and his brother in addition to his parents, they were just following the form construction work up and down the eastern seaboard. On the way you know, my brother was born in Wollongong. I was born in West Wyalong. The first of my three sisters was born and classical below will be a winner in Queensland. So which shifted 12 or 13 times before I started kindergarten back in Adelaide. Yeah, well, we lived in five states and territories. In that time. We were we were counties following the work. So property's been in my blood since I was born. And I was born in a caravan on the road. I think dad might have been building a set of apartments or units in summer in regional New South Wales at the time. And then we moved back to South Australia in it must have been about 1986 ish. Because my, my grandfather had tended for for a decommissioned school, it was at Fairmont Girls High School. That school been decommissioned and pop had this great idea to turn it into a retirement village that was successful with that tender, and then we shifted back from Queensland to SA. And that's when the family business started building, developing, owning and managing retirement villages. So I've grown up in quite a unique part of the industry. And then I spent my professional youth working in parliament for politicians. So it was quite a misspent youth wandering the hallways of a parliament. I learned a lot during those times. So I had my family upbringing and construction sites, went to uni for a few years to study. My Bachelor of Arts did my honors and then eventually, Masters in Communication. But I'd actually always wanted to be an architect. It was since I was about five, my brother was meant to become a carpenter and Michael and I are meant to seamlessly transition into the family business. It didn't work out that I eventually realized when I was about 16, that I didn't want to become an architect anymore. I went to uni femaIe through a Bachelor of Arts, studied politics and history. And then just became immersed in the world of politics, picked up a traineeship with with a guy called Rob Lucas, who's now treasurer again. And I learned a lot from Rob in those early years and then went on to work for Isabel Redmond in a major advisor capacity and then for someone called Steven Marshall performing a similar role. And I've been the property counsel for the last seven years and The way that that's all tied together, I think it's quite simple family background in property and construction, Early professional experience with politics, media and public relations. And now the Property Council that sort of brings all of those things together. My role on any given day is about relationships, relationships with politicians, relationships with journalists, relationships with influencers and decision makers, and naturally relationships with landlords and developers here in South Australia. So that's the really short story. But it did start in a quite unusual way, you know, living in a caravan for my first four years of life. And we used to have a bath in the sink in the caravan. That was, it was like a pump handle, tap, pump the water in from time to time. The old Jayco pop top caravan, it's still sitting up at mum and dads and one of the sheds. And every time I see that caravan now, I think, you know, we've got three kids ourselves. The mum and dad had three kids in the caravan before they had two more back in Adelaide. Having three kids myself. I look at that caravan and think, how on earth are they doing?
Daniel Franco:No, it doesn't make even just having gone through that lockdown and having the it was it was it was ridiculous.
Daniel Gannon:That's really hard. And I'm gonna look at that caravan. I've got no idea how they did it.
Daniel Franco:No, from a privacy point of view. But not only that, but you need your downtime, right? That's where I was going with that. And living in that Gavin? You're lucky the other two waited to add like, Can I ask what what is it about government policies that get you out of the bed in the morning? Like, it doesn't seem to me being you know, and you are very strong in your communications side. So what is it what draws you to this world?
Daniel Gannon:So as I said, Before, I I was raised in a family that that had a lot of skin in the game and still does. And, and when you have skin in the game, particularly at a time when interest rates are hitting 20%. Even even as a young kid, I've got a couple of memories of family meetings of the dinner table, at least on two occasions when I was probably about 10. And then again, when I was about 15 or 16 due to economic circumstances and financial circumstances risk. On two occasions, we almost had to move into two of our retirement villages. So you know, Dad said to the family, you know, due to circumstances, we might have to move from my bank in the Adelaide Hills to I think it was I think it was Albury Wodonga, we were building a village over there a long time ago. So I look back at experiences like that. And, and I've always carried this great appreciation for risk takers did have those levels of skin in the game. Because that's really hard and stressful. At times, it can also be incredibly rewarding. So my membership here in terms of what I do, I I'm meeting with people like that on a daily basis. They're building and owning and developing big commercial sites in Adelaide, the carry incredible risk, particularly during times of pandemic, hardship, and great flux and uncertainty. So I've got great lasting respect for people who take their level of risk. At the same time, they're also doing an amazing thing for the economy. They're creating jobs, they're stimulating the local market, they're literally changing the skyline on a daily basis. I find that really exciting, really interesting. And the role that we play at The Property Council is to ensure that regulatory and policy settings aren't damaging. You know, the policies aren't getting in the way of that development. Actually, bringing Adelaide forward making Adelaide incredibly exciting. I think that our cities come a really long way in the last probably last seven to eight years. To be honest. I think you've I think if you haven't been to Adelaide for a long time, and you were to come here, whenever borders open or whenever, whenever you're allowed to, I think if you came here and looked at this city in terms of skyline, you'll be incredibly impressed. This CBD has been dominated by cranes and hard hats and still caps for a long time. Adelines changed a lot and and they're the types of people that we represent here, The Property Council. So for me, when I get up in the morning, I know that I'm representing people like that, who are taking that level of risk, who are helping change the skyline. And, and I take that that role really seriously. Part of the job, of course is to help execute that. That message, you know, to communicate that you know, you know, you know proper and effective manner. And I think we do that really well here at The Property Council. And we have done that historically, even well, before my time.
Daniel Franco:Just a bit of a random question. Were you talking about the skyline that there are caps to our skyline? Is that the, you know, from that alone is that when people do look into South Australia, and especially investors from all over the world who want to who do want to build high rise buildings? Is that something that is going to hold us back?
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, the flight path is a consideration for sure. I mean, Adelaide has literally and figuratively been growing up a lot in the past 10 years, rather than necessarily growing out. You know, we've, we've been having that policy debate and discussion for a long time now about urban sprawl, versus densification. Starting in the CBD and working outwards. Naturally, we'd love to see, you know, flight path considerations, relaxed a bit so that we can genuinely have some skyscrapers. Like, we have seen some really unique proposals in recent times. The the Masonic Hall on North Terrace, there's a really exciting proposal there to develop what would be headlights first skyscraper. Now, the further east that you head in the CBD, theoretically, the taller the building can be because the planes are at a higher point. Okay? The further west you go in the CBD, the lower your buildings can be because the plans are getting lowered down to the airport.
Daniel Franco:It'd be interesting looking from a bird's eye view and yeah, in future.
Daniel Gannon:But I mean, if like over the past 12 months, even 19 to 24 months, actually. There have been a lot of great buildings that are have either been approved or that are now under construction, whether they're residential hotels, or even commercial, yeah, we've
Daniel Franco:seen him going up. It's amazing stuff. But it's exciting stuff. I think, for me, there's an excuse the ignorance in this, there's a lot of room up there for planes to fly like why can't we can't move our city, surely they can just find a different path. Is that not is not as simple as that? Well, it's
Daniel Gannon:also a demand equation as well. So what we do here at The Property Council and we have done for a long time is there's three main policy drivers that we're always focused on our core business is property taxes and taxation. Yeah, more generally, population growth and demand, and then red tape, and typically red tape that gets in the way of development and construction. But on that second one, growth and demand. That's our great opportunity now. So it's always been a drag on us. For the last 30 years, we've seen this genteel decline of our population growth rate, we've seen this mass exit is best and brightest. Kids who leave Adelaide after school or uni in search of opportunities, a lot of our friends and mates from school collectively, I'm sure you would have seen your mates leave Adelaide since you left school? I know I have. So for us, I think there's an incredible opportunity out of COVID and I don't really like talking about the COVID thing a lot. But what I love to focus on with the post pandemic period whenever that might be because I presumed that was still mid pandemic is is Adelaide, Proposition Adelaide, its value proposition now. So I think that allied makes perfect sense in a post pandemic world. I think. I think that on the back of Adelaide, the value proposition that is Adelaide making more sense now than it ever has, is centered around growth and centered around population growth. It's centered around retaining more of our young kids instead of them fleeing to, you know, cities that are far more dense than Adeline if there are concerns in a post pandemic environment of super dense cities, and I think Adelines a direct beneficiary. And that will only lead to more people and therefore more productivity. And I'd like of course, what we need is, you know, that jobs question we need more jobs coming out, coming out of Adelaide to complement those kids staying here and coming back.
Daniel Franco:There's a few questions that are that we the pandemic are going on. Now. I'm going to rattle off a couple of statistics and has there been a silver lining from the pandemic in regards to property when you look at you know, this was taken from the Property Council website houses the single source of truth the single so that's where the house is house pricing and sales trail is improved by 136% in the last quarter 550% Over the past 12 months. More in we talk about people coming here and using that price guide alone. I live down at Henley a good little spot they're not gonna complain they're good beach boy I am on the sidewalk was boy grew up down at Henley and I've lived them a whole lot over Australia Boy Yeah, given your mix. Boy you and I can't really be in the same you know, I don't know what we shouldn't we should cancel this conversation. But it really for me there was a there's a house on on the street Just Sold for record price. And the Sydney family moving over. Both work in the corporate world. And they're moving to South Australia because a they're 300 meters from the beach. And it's a beautiful spot. And they can work from home and get paid Sydney wages and live here and enjoy the benefits of it all. So you know that there's no real need for them to walk in. So that in itself is is painting him a pretty, pretty good picture going on and you talk about staffing levels have increased by 37% 300%. Since March last year, the state economic expectations have jumped by 140% in the last year or so there's some good stuff coming out out of this pen they're making is is it wrong to look at it as silver lining.
Daniel Gannon:So I think if we look back to those really scary uncertain times of particularly march through to May in June last year, there were forecasts and predictions of double digit unemployment. There were forecasts and predictions of share market crashes, you know, a housing market that would be under incredible duress. There were there were all sorts of scary predictions and forecasts that that shook economists and the industry to its core. If we stand here today and look back on last year, and there's a lot that Adelaide has to be grateful for. We've got developments just down the road here like 60 King William Street with charter Hall, we've got ICD property, developing the central markets. We've got C bus, down Pierce Street, they're developing one of your old stomping grounds, I'm sure the old planet nightclub. There's incredible demand and investor interest in Adelaide. We've got to have still to this day, we've got a median house price that starts with the five instead of ending in million. Yeah, like you see in parts of Melbourne, Sydney. We have so many competitive advantages in a national context here in Adelaide. So I'm not surprised that you've got Sydney families or Melbourne families, or even London families looking at a city like Adelaide. In recent times the economist livability index rated Adelaide, not just the world's third most livable city, but Australia's most livable city. Roy Morgan, in recent times, you know, gave South Australia top marks I think they, I think the direct quote was, you know, South Australia's COVID management was top of the class, you've had the Victorian Government in recent times release a state budget that, you know, jacked up land tax and stamp duty taxes in Victoria. And just as one example, there, if you were to purchase a $5 million commercial property in Victoria, you'll be now paying 308% More 308% More in Victoria, than you would on the same property in Adelaide. So and the short point is, is we have an incredible argument, and an incredible pitch to both investors and residents to move to South Australia, it's it's as simple as that. And like the adeleye proposition has never made more sense than it does. Now in the middle of a global pandemic, let alone in a post pandemic, environment. And, you know, for companies like ICD property and shadow Hall and CBus, to be flocking to Adelaide during a pandemic, to be you know, vitually. And, you know, raising the level of our skyline, despite all the global economic uncertainty that says incredible things about our great city.
Daniel Franco:It does, and it's exciting. You seen the Googles of the world and all these new tech companies etc. The problem is with some of the bigger companies. So this isn't this is a concern that the smaller businesses and I run my consulting management consulting firm that was always up against the big four and the like, and, and you'd be running a big business. from a growth perspective, it is we are doing quite well. But getting the right people is the other thing. So when you have these companies and I do know a lot of local, very successful IT companies who when they when these big companies such as big centers of the world, and those really well known, well known consulting companies come in here and say they're going to employ 1000 people, where are they going to get those 1000 people from? They're stealing them from the smaller businesses. So there's this two pronged effect here in in the sense of coming, it's great. We want to get businesses we want to get jobs, but where are we gonna get these people from? Because it feels like there's a situation of robbing Peter to pay Paul at the moment some of the industries I think that
Daniel Gannon:South Australia has historically punched above our weight. We've We've long done that. We've got some incredible and iconic SMEs here in Adelaide, whether you're in professional services or even in retail and food, I mean looking at The chaplets, or the drugs, or the or the Romeo's as an example in the supermarket world, you know, they're genuine world leading companies here in Adelaide that started as SMEs. And they're much better than some of the bigger companies, companies like yours, no doubt are on this incredible growth trajectory over the next five to 10 years. And, and I think what what being a South Australian and being a South Australian business owner or South Australian investor, and teaches us teaches you is that you've got to be better, your value propositions got to be greater. And as a direct result, you'll always provide greater business service to clients than many other big companies would, I guess, when it comes to bigger professional services companies, hiring 200 400 600 people, they're probably not coming from Adelaide. So the great economic opportunity for us is keeping them here. Instead of them, you know, flocking back to places like Sydney and Melbourne, once they've ticked a two year box, we don't want to see that. Because that's not that's not genuine growth. That's that short term, you know, box ticking growth, that's not sustainable, that's not long lasting, we'd love to see those hundreds of people that do come here, to get that early experience with a professional services firm to then shift to companies like yours and others, but equally to buy a house here and to have kids and to send them to school and add to the economic growth, pay your taxes here. And of course, you know, you'd be paying lower taxes here in a place like 308%. But do it here, stay here, you know, get to know Adelaide, Adelaide can be clicky place it is relationships driven. But South Australia makes a lot of sense in a post pandemic world. And long may that continue?
Daniel Franco:Yeah, look, I'm a sa boy through and through, and I couldn't agree more and it is good place. It is a different place to do business, though. You feel like if you go to a Sydney, you could walk into a room and and sell something on the spot. Where is he? He came to Adelaide, and he's very much relationship based and building. But you know, that will grow and the bigger and bigger we get more and more opportunities will arise. So I'm interested in the pet, let's talk about the pandemic, we've just come out of the lockdown the seven day lockdown a day to now with a two hour which is you know, the sense of freedom is amazing at the moment, having the kids go back to school first. And most importantly the way this sort of question came from is there's a there's a campaign going on at the moment. And you know, don't don't bring you don't bring your lunch to work and support local businesses and help them get back. And it's amazing. And that's exactly what I did yesterday, although I support local businesses for lunch every single day. Much to my wife's discontent, but the I went into a local little tire shop and you know, bought the oil barmy role and and was speaking to the locals. And they were they're really struggling, they're really struggling. And they were, they were saying that the biggest problem for them is that the the landless don't need to pay rent, right and so they're in and they not only were locked down for seven days where they're not working and they kind of relying on that income, they were relying to pay their rent for the for their shop, their not only their rent for their home and and everything else on top of that actually trying to put food on the table. Then on top of that, once we are back all the big businesses aren't sending their their people back. They're still working on from the you know, the next week, two weeks, three weeks until confidence rises and people want to send back. So the ongoing effect of the seven days isn't just a seven day problem. It's a My question to you is what conversations a is The Property Council having with landlords and how do we look after these small businesses because we're talking about incentives are coming into South Australia. That doesn't seem to be an incentive of starting a business within the CBD. Right now in this pandemic world.
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, look in COVID has had a disproportionately large impact on cities around the world because global cities are typically more dense. There's more people, more buses, there's more cars and therefore there's there's a greater perceived or real risk in catching and transmitting COVID. The proposition with landlords and tenants has been really hard. So last year, I mean if we go back to May last year when the prime minister came out and proposed a proposed a national code of conduct for commercial leases. That was really tricky. That was a really tricky time for both landlords and tenants because it pitted a landlord against a tenant and and that happened across the country. What we saw in Adelaide in March Though when the world started to change was the bulk of commercial landlords here in Adelaide, being well in front of governments being well in front of governance because they were already talking to the tenants about possible and proposed impacts on revenue. And the bulk of landlord by the time the Code of Conduct came into force by probably June, the bulk of landlords had already done deals with tenants because everybody recognized and realize that it'd be much better to have a tenant at the back end of this thing. As opposed to having no tenant at all. A lot of tenants started to innovate, which I thought was amazing. You know, you had companies like the stag hotel, that obviously couldn't open and operate for quite a chunk of early last year. Those guys started a basically a bottleshop delivery company to deliver wine and beer. Yes. So I think it's really easy to focus on some of the negatives last year. But on the flip side, there was incredible business innovation with a lot of SMEs are an outlier because they had to now the Commercial Code of Conduct was in place until, from memory the first week of January. So let's say from June to January, and banks decided to cut costs. Don't forget, banks play a really important role in this environment. Two banks were deferring some repayments and some interests. They weren't writing them off. They were deferring them. Landlords, on the other hand, were actually putting a line through a lot of their rental revenue. So landlords, landlords copped a pretty big hit last year, but they did so knowing that it was for the greater good, because they wanted to retain tenants at the back end. I take your point and board about this week, it's hard. You had restaurants and cafes that had to dispose of food, and all sorts of other perishable items. And that goes straight to the bottom line. Like that hurts them in a really big way. As there's confidence and you know, occupancy trickling back up to where it was pre lockdown. If we just have a look at occupancy for a minute. The Property Council since July last year has been tracking occupancy of commercial office buildings across the entire country. From July through to today. Adelaide dipped to a low of 55% occupancy in commercial office buildings in August last year. We're currently pre lockdown. I should say we're currently at about 80% 80% of pre pandemic levels. Now that last 20% It's probably going to be a bit sticky. It's gonna be a little tricky to get that 20% That 8020 rule we'll be right. But pre lockdown. That was it a pretty good level? Yeah. footfall had certainly strengthened. Obviously, you can walk the streets and you see, you see for lay signs and a few buildings. Yeah, that has been really disheartening. So there's no doubt that it's had an incredible impact on a lot of SMEs. But landlords have copped it hard to and then, you know, I mean, I'm not sitting here with a violin at this point during this part of the conversation, because very few people would have sympathy for landlords, I think that's a wrong perception. But the reality is they've copped it to it's been hard for everyone. And and I think that everybody, you know, as we continue to navigate our way through the pandemic, God knows when it's going to end. Everybody's just going to be conscious of everyone's financial risk and financial situations, but occupancy was lifting pre lockdown vacancy rates. Everybody expected commercial office vacancy rates to go through the roof, because there was that early gap fueled by a lot of forecasters, probably the same forecasters who said that unemployment would go to double digits. Yeah. They said that commercial officers would would would reduce in size because Aaron's gonna work from home forever. Well, we don't accept that at all. flexibility in the workplace was here before the pandemic, and it will certainly still be here, post pandemic, but vacancy rates in Adelaide CBD have decreased. And they've decreased over the past 12 months, which I think is an incredible result. It's it's a sign of the resilience of the Adelaide office market. Now, it's still at about 15%. Yeah, there's still about 200,000 square meters of empty space in Adelaide, CBD. But it's not going up. It's come down. So it's on the mend.
Daniel Franco:Are we going to see trends? Because there would be already contracts in place five years, 10 years? You know, are we going to see that come down? In three, four or five years time is that when we?
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, and my lease, for example, is five years? Yeah. Most most companies would have a five year lease. So there's no doubt that we're only 15 to 18 months into a five year cycle, let's call so we're probably not going to see the full impact for another three years. In that commercial office space. There's no doubt about it, but what we hear in the market already And we heard it from mid last year was that architects are now redesigning workspaces that are bigger, not necessarily small. They're bigger, so that companies can actually insulate themselves against future proximity and health based pandemics. So we've got companies that are now putting two meters in between every workstation. Yeah, based on Nicholas Spurrier and SA Health guidelines, about 1.5 meters, physical distancing. So we think that we more of that. So I don't think it's as easy as saying that every workspace is going to reduce in size and every commercial landlord is going to suffer, and the commercial property investment market won't be a good investment in five years time. I don't think that's the case, because the work from home trend was here before COVID. It'll be here after COVID. The question is, how great an influence will it actually have on big companies and some of the big global companies that have made global decisions out of places like New York and Beijing and London? The question is, when do those companies change their decision making and allow some of their regional offices in places like Adelaide, whether they allow their people to come back to the office, because we think that South Australia's handling of COVID has been textbook, we think that our comparative advantages around resilience and health and safety are second to none. Now the rest knockdown was a bit of a blip. Yeah, no doubt at all bounce back.
Daniel Franco:The the question of the lockdown is a different political issue. It's about what's more important is, you know, safety or economics and all this sort of stuff. So that's it. That's a whole world that we could dive into and talk for hours. That's not really what we're trying to gain out of this conversation, though. The The interesting thing, really is about the affected the ongoing effect of the city, what are we doing to promote growth back into the city to promote businesses? I know, back in the back. I'm not 100% sure if it's still running the renewal essay stuff where it was getting a new headline, renew Adelaide, sorry, where we were getting, we're offering potential office spaces for free for 30 days. Yeah. And is that sort of some of the promotions that The Property Council looking at? How do we get people back into the city, really supporting it, making it vibrant in a world that is unknown right now? Or are we just going to wait and sit it out? Well, we
Daniel Gannon:can afford to just wait. I can wait. I was in the border of New Adelaide for five years. That's a great organization here in Adelaide. It's the Steve Morris. Steve was chair of new Adelaide for a long time Nick burger. Marcus has been shaved for the past five and a half years. The beauty about that company is that it brings together entrepreneurs and landlords. Yeah. Now they are two constituencies that would rarely cross paths. But we've got a lot of progressive landlords in Adelaide that are willing to put their spaces on the line at no cost to help these entrepreneurs get out of the ground.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, that mainly for retail or is it any
Daniel Gannon:hospitality retail the arts. Oliver Brown who runs the stag and Knoller and anchovy band on Prospect road, he was a really early renewed lead tenant. And at the time, at the time that a lot of these creatives commercialize their business, that's when they stopped paying rent. So it gets them out of the ground in a lot of these empty spaces in unique parts of the city. breathes life back into, you know, arcades and malls. The renew allied model works really well when you can cluster a lot of tenants together. Yeah, a lot of those landlords are foregoing rent, of course, but they're also taking a punt. A lot of these creatives will become successful commercial operations in a relatively short period of time, when it comes to initiatives and incentives to get people back into the CBD. The Property Council came out with this proposition probably back in April or May. And we put a proposition to Stephen Marshall and Rob Lucas and said look, you know, when we have look at footfall across the Adelaide, CBD, Mondays and Fridays were being disproportionately hit. A lot of workers were taking long weekends might be an unfair way to carry it. But they were typically working from home on Mondays and Fridays. Correct. Now we're coming to the office Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. A lot of read a lot of hospitality providers, a lot of restaurant owners derive the bulk of their revenue on Fridays, the Friday lunch trade. So we said the government Why don't we come up with this idea? Let's call it FOMO Fridays, fear of missing out on Fridays. Let's come up with a fun, cool, exciting initiative. That's a it's a bit of a three way partnership between city council. State gov MIT and the private sector, everybody plays their part. So landlords might Chuck 200 bucks. Across the counter in the cafe in the foyer of the building. Every Friday for four weeks. The local restaurant might have lunch specials, city council might decide to put on a concert in the park, we might do some yoga sessions. Yeah, first thing in the morning, the state government. Steve Marshall turned around and said, I love that idea. It's great. Because like, at least we're having a crack. Yep. And the state government put $800,000 forward for FOMO Fridays, that will basically take over September. So hopefully the world is looking a
Daniel Franco:bit closer, you guys launched that was great,
Daniel Gannon:great initiative, great partnership with the state government. We can't just sit back, we can't roll over and accept that, that things have to be this way. Because there's a lot of business owners in the CBD that are struggling. Yeah, we've got to do everything that we can to make sure that they are staying in business. And if that means you and I are having a beer after work at four o'clock on Friday, because you know, your boss lets you leave the office now early. Happy days. Yeah, I come to work. Do you work? There's a lot more productivity that can be gained from the workplace. You know, the new ever get from home? Knock off, knock off an hour early, go to the pub, have a beer, you know, have have a beer for you have a beer for your boss and have one for the economy to drive home? Yeah, catch a bus or an Uber Uber and make sure you wear your face. But come back to the office. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:Is there an opportunity to to talk to the business businesses about people taking time off on Fridays? And when is it especially Fridays Mondays? Everyone wants to take the Monday's off and work from home? Yeah. Do that extra day in that the Fridays? You know, if right now we've got a we had a team catch up. booked in on this Friday, pre lockdown was it was booked in weeks and weeks ago. And come in and support the locals. And that's really what we're after. Right now. We're considering moving at virtual purely for the simple fact that we can in this environment, we can have all of our staff in one place at the one time, let alone would we be able to fit into one place at one time? Yeah. So these are the concerns, but were really sort of pushing from our team, our staff that, you know, come in and support locals. And let's go out and have a drink on a Friday afternoon support, like restaurants and pubs and stuff like that is something that we can promote to businesses and business owners and all that sort of stuff as well.
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, absolutely. It is really hard that moment, because you do have to follow health guidelines. As their health is right. We are taking a really cautious approach to this virus. And so we should, but obviously, that does have a disproportionate impact on the economy. So naturally, businesses should be operating the way that you are at the moment until those those recommendations change and the restrictions lift. But when those restrictions do it, like they will overcome anyway. Yeah. Come back to the office come back to the CBD. It's not unsafe. The CBD is not an unsafe place. And if you stay working from home in the suburbs forever. By the time you come back to the city, it's going to look pretty disastrous. And given CBDs around the world, are the engine rooms of economies everywhere. We just have to be really conscious of that. If there's no CBD, there's no GSP it's as simple as
Daniel Franco:then. Why is it because you've got you've got employees,
Daniel Gannon:you've you've got construction and development happening in CBD. As I said before, I can point to half a dozen incredible major developments happening right now in the CBD commercial developments, office towers. If these office towers are built, and that $470 million, the charter holds investing at 60 King William Street is all for nothing, then economy start to collapse. You look at a place like the central markets development. You've got an interstate developer, ICD property looking to breathe life back into that precinct. We can't have people in the suburbs and not shopping in places like the central markets. There's an incredible level of investment that goes into the CBD. Adelaide Oval, for example. That's a 55,000 seat stadium. We can't have nobody watching footy games forever. It is interesting. I mean, even over the past 12 months whilst occupancy has been low. Football crowds have still been high when they've been allowed to be high. So people are coming back to the CBD. The picking and choosing choosing the reasons to come back to the city. But I gotta say I'm in my team here at The Property Council. We can work effectively remotely, but we will we work a lot better sitting in this boardroom with these whiteboards behind your checking ideas. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:The the big part of our businesses we work with companies through their culture transformation, that whole space, culture and leadership being two of the biggest issues at the moment in in working from home is IT leaders aren't really quite uncertain how to lead a team who are not in front of them. It's a big it's a big problem. But then also, it's the human connection piece, right? Being in a room having conversation, it's those those conversations at the watercooler where you might pick something up and say, hey, when you scream over the other side of the room, Hey, did you hear about this? And then someone on the other side of rooms going no, no, you should do this, this this, I've tried that before those ideas all of a sudden, and no longer existent. So we we do believe the hybrid models here to stay most businesses, and I think the staff are very willing to have one or two days where they can stay at home on a Friday or, and do the washing and prepare for the weekend. I think that's really what it's all about. But we're seeing the trends that you know, from a mental health perspective, that not being in the room with your peers, not being around and discussing having those robust discussions, and just getting that human interaction constantly is having an effect on people.
Daniel Gannon:I met Stephen Marshall early last year, changing his rhetoric pretty early on from from two pillar focused response to COVID to a three pillar focus. So of course, the first two were SA Health, Health generally, and the economy, two pillars, the third pillar became mental health. And that is a really important consideration, because you don't know what your colleagues or your staff are going through if you're not there with them. So this has been tricky. It's been hard, things will bounce back, the economy will repair. But it won't happen unless people start to change the behaviors. Just just to give you one example. Last year, more in fact, every year The Property Council holds a big Christmas party a big Christmas lunch with the industry remember the
Daniel Franco:invite, but that's
Daniel Gannon:we would typically have about 1000 people coming to our lunch. It's quite extraordinary. That'll change. Yeah,
Daniel Franco:I'm on the email list.
Daniel Gannon:So last year was really hard. You know, the Convention Center last year, the Allied oval like that we're seeing cancellations coming at them with one center. The density restrictions were really tricky. The outdoor versus indoor thing was really tricky. But given that my team at The Property Council will be in the office last year, we were throwing ideas in the whiteboard every day, we decided to come up with something really bizarre, really different to try to work with the changing nature of restrictions last year, and and it wouldn't have happened unless we were together in the office. But we decided to hold our Christmas lunch in a disused hangar at the Atlanta airport. Now it was disused, because Qantas decided to remove a plane because of course they were flying fewer planes last year that that hangar originally came from our springs in I think it was the mid 1950s. And Qantas had been a continuous tenant in that disused military hangar ever since it became vacant. We were throwing all sorts of ideas on the table about where we could go out doors, to hold our Christmas lunch. We spoke to the airport and they jumped on board straightaway. Now, that sort of collaboration, productivity, creativity couldn't have happened unless we were together unless we were deliberately thinking about how to do things differently. We had an incredible day in a disused hangar, with the door up perfect conditions. With a Qantas jet sitting in the background there. We had an amazing day. There were so many moving parts that day. Probably 100 of them. If one of them had gone wrong, it would have been a complete disaster. But I think there's a really good story in that for businesses generally. That's my business story about being forced to think differently and to innovate and to collaborate. But you can't do that at home. You can't do that unless everybody's sitting around that boardroom table. Being forced to think outside the square to do things differently. Pick up the phone and call someone to ask if you can collaborate with them. We think you'd get a lot more productivity and better outcomes sitting in the office as opposed to sitting it on Yeah.
Daniel Franco:Oh, yes. You can be productive on zoom in on the team's calls. And but it becomes very transactional. You're at the level of innovation is reduced considerably. I don't have any statistics around that. But it is reduced considerably from what we're seeing in the market. Let's go back to Daniel cannons arise to fame in the land tax. You talk about the 300 night you You came up against a couple of your old mentors in Rob Lucas and Steven Marshall. would have been a pretty difficult time. That was
Daniel Gannon:fun. Land tax actually feels like a lifetime ago. Yeah. 2009? Yeah. So it was the it was the final it was the FY 20 state budget. So it was June 2019. It look that one, that one caught us a little bit by surprise. That particular campaign in battle has been well documented. But that one was hard. That was hard, because I did spend five or six years working with Rob Lucas, a long time ago now, and also a couple of years with Steven Marshall. But that's it. I mean, in the end, despite having very early and public differences of opinion, we did finish on the same page. So we did come back, there was a deal that was done, there was a great outcome that was achieved. Can you
Daniel Franco:give us a little bit of a rundown on what Yeah, sure what the few that was.
Daniel Gannon:So basically, in the 2019 state budget, the state government put forward retrospective changes to land tax aggregation. So that is the way that land tax is, is built in the way that properties are aggregated to then produce a landlord's land tax bill. And the worst part about the proposition, Daniel was that it was retrospective. And the problem with retrospective city with legislation is it means that you are shifting the goalposts on investors after they've already made the investment. And fundamentally, we just don't think that that's a fair or or good thing to do. It's actually a really risky thing to do. Yeah. So we did have a big difference of opinion, we are remembering the state government, I think budgeted for an additional $40 million in inland tax revenue. And we call that out really early and said, You know what, it's going to be three times that amount, at least, we think it's gonna be about $120 million. We think that there are some incredible risks here, not just for institutional, bigger landlord, but also for mum and dad investors. So we, we were going to contact with a lot of property owners across the state through the course of our campaign, what we're asking for was really simple. We're asking for a fair go for land tax, we're asking for better consultation, were asking for a better deal. I think that campaign went on for about five months, we were going head to head almost on a daily basis for that five month period. That's not true for about four months, because of course, we did eventually come together and produce a really good effective outcome for the majority of property owners in South Australia. But that was taxing at a personal level, given the nature of the relationships that I had. But I have with Robin, Stephen. And, of course, that's also been well documented. So that was hard. That was a really tricky year. But at the end of the day, we were able to sit down with Robert Lucas hatch a far better set of arrangements. And in the end, the top rate of land tax has reduced from 3.7%, which has long been historically anti competitive, not as uncompetitive. 3.7% top land tax rate above about a million dollars has long been anti competitive, that's dropped by almost 40%. Now to 2.4%. So we are now nationally competitive, and we've doubled the top thresholds, the top thresholds now in excess of $2 million. So what we've ended up with is a far better outcome for investors a far better outcome for a lot of mum and dad investors and a lot of big institutional investors here in South Australia. So we think, in addition to the fact that we don't have stamp duty on commercial property transactions anymore, which we achieved back in 2015 2016, as a package, no commercial stamp duty, and a far more competitive land tax environment, that's a great pitch to invest in. So the land tax battle 2019, it does feel like that was a long time ago now. But we managed to get back on the same, you know, get around the table, get a far better deal put on the table, and then convince people at Jandali in the Legislative Council, that the license deal was actually a good deal for the state. And, and I can still say to you now that that was a good deal, and that these are grad arrangements now from an investment perspective, and they'll be long lasting.
Daniel Franco:Brilliant. Is that is that the time in your career that you feel propelled you to different level? Well, because you're fighting, fighting for a cause? Well,
Daniel Gannon:it was a great risk and a great opportunity. Yeah, at the same time. I've been the property counsel for seven years now. And I think one thing that's really important is whenever I do leave the Stop and go to the next one that will be able to look back, knowing that, that we've as an industry worked really well together. And then we've produced some outcomes like no commercial stamp duty, like, significant reductions to land tax. You know, we've defeated things like, taxes on CBD carparks, the state bank tax, of course, from a few years ago, I'd like to think that as an industry, we'll be able to look back knowing that we've left incredible legacy that should now be long lasting. Land tax was a risk, it was also an opportunity. But to be honest, I think for anyone's career, what you need relationships in different places at different times to ensure that you can do a good deal that you can get a deal done, you can collaborate with different people from different sides of the political spectrum, to ensure that your industry and of course, mine, his property is better off. No, it doesn't happen all the time, we've worked really hard to make sure the property is always at the forefront of political decision making. That's why we're quite public about the things that we do, whether they're positive or negative, or neutral. We think that we think that part of our role is to, you know, provide a voice of economic commentary from time to time to ensure that you know, both punters and politicians know exactly what the plight of property is. And we think that we've done some, you know, pretty incredible things over the past 10 or 20 years as an organization, particularly the last five to
Daniel Franco:touch on your ability to create and maintain relationships to skill set that is much needed in business, you know, walks of life, what is your approach to, to creating new relationships? Or is it is it is are you at a point where status helps provide you any in or in, talk to us about how you grew to that point where, you know, you're getting your name out there was, was required for you to actually start having an influence on the market.
Daniel Gannon:When I started the Property Council back in 2014. I didn't know how to run a business. That was really new to me. I'd always lead teams of people, but I'd never actually been running a balance sheet. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:So what role did you start in when you came? Executive Director, so you came straight into So you started this whole?
Daniel Gannon:No, I didn't start the company. But I came, I came in as executive director back in 2014. from a commercial perspective, we run about 20 to 30 events in an ordinary year, lunches, breakfast seminars, and study tours. So there's a big commercial part of what we do that we do that to build a platform to talk about our advocacy to talk about our policy ambitions to, to give politicians and business owners a stage to put forward and defend things. We use that stage from time to time, to put a flag in the ground, from a defensive perspective. But we also do it to help celebrate great successes. But I think at the end of the day, you've got to have a value proposition. I know that when I knock on the doors of politicians, labor, liberal alike, what I want them to see isn't me. Because the reality is, it's not about me, and like The Property Council will be here, after I go. And it was certainly here before I came. But my challenge has always been that when they see me, they don't just see me, they look over my shoulder and they see an army of investors that this state has an army of proud investors and proud business owners that do incredible things for this state that take incredible amounts of risk. And that's what the Property Council I think, is really good at mobilizing bodies of people, mobilizing investors and landlords like we deal with land tax. The land tax campaign was a really great example. Because we all came together, knowing that we were wanting to to achieve the same thing. And that was to, to, you know, get rid of this really bad idea that was put forward. That could have been helped. If there. If there was consultation, I think I think we could have come to the same outcome. Yeah, if we'd spoken about it two months before, so that all stakeholder management? Well, it's just not the way that I would have done. But my look, I mean, I spent the last five to seven years, but even before that, to be honest, building relationships, maintaining relationships, curating those relationships, and trying to ensure that I've never burned them because the other market is, you know, isn't a market where you can afford to burn them. If you've burnt them, then at some point, you've got to work on rebuilding them. So Adelaide is a relationship based business community. And what I spend most of my time doing on a daily basis is sitting down with people having coffees meeting new people, or sitting down with coffees and Writing existing relationships, I've got spending time with people. I mean, I love the fact that my members take me along on their journey when they're developing a project or building an incredible building. Or even, you know, one of my members, builds shallow sea ports up on the New York Peninsula. I mean, like, that's incredible stuff, like, productive infrastructure like that is really exciting and different. So I love the fact that they take me with them on their journey, and they expose me to really different things. So when I do walk into someone's office to ask for things, or to suggest to people to not do certain things, they're not seeing me, because I'll be replaced when I leave. There'll be another executive director of The Property Council, but then they see that army of people over my shoulder, who will always be they'll always be invested in this state. Because the beauty about property is it's rooted here. You know, these guys are long term, patient investors wanting to do the right thing by their state wanting to do the right thing by their portfolio.
Daniel Franco:What is the benefit of these investors join Property Council, like why not just buy something can just not be just be on your own? Like, what, why? Why would they become a member,
Daniel Gannon:I think that'd be a really short sighted view for people to take. So we know what our value proposition is, we've got a great track record of really positive advocacy outcomes, the benefits, the property industry, the benefits, the investment environment here in this state, if this organization didn't exist, we'd still be stuck with an Atlanta tax rate, that's that's almost 4% rather than one that's closer to two. If it wasn't for this organization, you know, we'd probably still have commercial stamp duty in place. You've now got investors flocking to this city, buying up property, because they can save five and a half percent right up front. That's a that's a huge amount of money when you buy a $200 million building. Yeah. If it wasn't for the Property Council and other allied industry associations, like businesses say or, you know, the master builders, you know, our constituents will be worse off. So I think it'd be a really short sighted view to have. Because we know what our value proposition is, we know that we're the best in the market at doing it. And when we do sit down with prospective new members, we say to them, you've got to be part of the community, because it's going to benefit you, it's going to benefit your business. The events that we hold, you might develop a new relationship over lunch with someone that you wouldn't have had had you not come. So not only can we connect people to people, we connect business to business, but we provide stages and platforms for people to talk about what they do as a business. We've got a big community here. Now, we've got about two and a half 1000 members across the country. They are, they are memberships that are business wide, rather than individual memberships. In Adelaide, we've got about 300 members, but a community of about 15,000 people. Yeah, that's a pretty powerful community. If and when it does come time to mobilize and campaign against something again, because I'm sure it'll happen. Governments of every persuasion, always put forward ideas that we think is short sighted or poor. And we'll always call them out for
Daniel Franco:a you in regards to the land tax of 2019. It was a reactive campaign, we saw this policy come through and you went up against it and ultimately came to a really great conclusion for the the investors in the property holders of South Australia. Moving forward, do you or does the Property Council look at ways to be innovative? You know, you've got the FOMO Fridays, which is a unique in its own right, and then you've got this land tax campaign? It's quite seriously. Well, yeah. Which is completely you can think about worlds apart like so. Yeah. So if we're, if we're looking at campaigns, are you forward thinking, are you working proactively with the government? Or is it very much a reactionary space? How does it all come into play?
Daniel Gannon:Well, a lot of the things that we do never actually see the light of day. Okay, so having conversations with politicians. You know, we've long done this, but we're having conversations from a defensive place to ensure the bad decisions aren't made. We're trying to cut them off at the pass. And occasionally, what happens with policymaking is, someone will put up an idea in a different jurisdiction. Let's take the foreign investor tax, for example, that was put up in one of the eastern seaboard jurisdictions a couple of years ago. And then it caught on it was spread like wildfire around the country. And then eventually, every jurisdiction decided to put forward foreign investor taxes which we said at the time, which was just it was a race to the populous bottom it was quite a xenophobic tax that was put forward in South Australia that came in after the state bank tax was defeated because the state government wanted to try to generate some more revenue. Now We think we think if the answer is higher taxes, new taxes, augmented taxes, then we're asking the wrong question. Because the answer should never be, let's just jack taxes up. And the answer should be, let's talk about growth and productivity first. And that's why our three core pillars of tax growth and red tape will always be there, particularly for a market of landlords that are private investors. But, you know, for example, we worked really hard last year on the commercial code of conduct. And we've worked really hard in recent times, to ensure that that doesn't come back because landlords are still working with their tenants to make sure that they are still sustainable and that they'll still be standing on their feet post pandemic, we just don't think we just don't think that mandated regulation is ever the right way forward. We think that less red tape is the answer, no more red tape because it can get in the way of investment, productivity, and growth in South Australia.
Daniel Franco:Brilliant. In regards to those three pillars, growth being one that I'm in love with, and I really want to see South Australia move forward as a state and not become the the old backwater state that we've been often referred to unfairly. Absolutely, unfairly. That was a few years ago now. What are we what are we? What are we doing from a growth perspective? That is going to attract the people to continually flock here? And and you know, if? Is it the case of build it? And they will come? Or is it? Do we get people and then build it? How, you know, chicken, sort of stuff
Daniel Gannon:will look, I mean, outside, outside, you know, a general population, mantra of one for mom, one for Dad, once the property counselor is probably a little chicken. That said, I mean, there's every chance that we'll see a bit of a baby boom, post pandemic, I think we are probably seeing a little bit of that. Population. Growth, for most people, is probably one of those things that just turns you off, it's probably there's probably people who might have even turned the volume down on this conversation right now, because we're talking about something pretty dry. But in reality, population growth is one of the most important indicators for this state of our growth. Pre pandemic, Victoria, as a state was growing by more people, every 27 days, then South Australia would grow across an entire year. Just think about that every 27 days, that we're getting the same growth that we see in 12 months.
Daniel Franco:That's why that lady West Gate Bridge is always getting upgraded every.
Daniel Gannon:But that is that isn't extraordinary. It is a two speed population difference. And that's not sustainable. Naturally, the economies in Sydney and Melbourne are far greater and stronger than ours. So population growth is a really important place for us to start now. The state government over the past few months has rightly been trumpeting the fact that the net interstate migration statistic is now in positive terms. We are now retaining more people as a state than we're losing. Which hasn't happened probably for 30 years in South Australia. Naturally, borders. A part of that. Yeah, like that there has been a global tendency to come on. But I do think that South Australia can be an incredible beneficiary of COVID of this pandemic, as long as we can get that value proposition right. We are. We are Australia's most livable city. We have been touted as having the best COVID management top of the class. By Roy Morgan, we are far more competitive place to invest. Victoria's making us look better at the moment, I think. But population growth is so super important. Now I've got three kids. I've done my bit. I've given one to mom, dad and The Property Council, we will encourage more people to do that. But But on a serious note. And the state government does agree with this as well, they share this opinion. We do have to Trump it ourselves far greater than we ever have. We do have to make the most of this pandemic. We can't waste the opportunity that we've got now, in a world that you know when health proximity and the densification of CBDs are I think wrongly seen by some people as a risk? And as a direct result? We've got to start thinking about those job opportunities on the other side, what 14? That is a great bow. You know, that's a great tool to have in the toolkit. Yeah, I think that it's a really good tool. It's a good launching pad. But it can't be the only tool. No, we need to have more tools in that toolkit to ensure that we are offering more opportunities to more kids and more of those clever entrepreneurs and startups.
Daniel Franco:It's getting people over here think if you and this pandemic has been a problem and I'm going to rattle off some statistics that were provided to me, they might be around the mark I'm not gonna say they're 100% accurate, but from my understanding that there was 230,000 into in 2009 230,000 came into Australia and from overseas looking for work in last year in 2020. It was 30,000. And in 2021 with net negative, so we're not getting the quality of people, the migrants that yeah, and then we would otherwise get. And again, I don't know how true those statistics are they were provided to me. Do it sounds roughly close to where it might be they away? Is that something that the Property Council and yourself were concerned about? And having close ties to the to the government? Is there something that we need to really wrap up quickly?
Daniel Gannon:Well, I think the reality there is that we can't do anything about borders at the moment. Migrants are really moving.
Daniel Franco:Can we at some point in time, if we choose economics before helps, right? And at what point does that call get made?
Daniel Gannon:Why don't think that calls can be made at the moment, because decisions are being made based on health advice, but borders will reopen. The vaccination rate will pick up around the country. I read in the paper earlier this week, you know that the we should be looking at a vaccination rate of 80%. Under 40s, can't get Pfizer yet there's been some concerns around AstraZeneca, the vaccination rate will pick up and when when that rate does pick up, borders will reopen. And I think once that does happen, and once once we can re welcome migrants to South Australia that they will flock here, because we haven't achieved some of those incredible accolades that I've mentioned earlier, over the past 12 months. And that will attract more people to this state. Our challenge ahead of us is to make them sticky, to keep them here, to make sure that they do have meaningful job opportunities to make sure they do have, you know, great cost of living and an incredibly envious lifestyle here, like you and I do enjoy living in suburbs of Adelaide. But the challenge for us is simple. I mean, I think that it does start with population growth. At some point and borders reopen more people will come here in migrants are important in terms of that population equation, but serves the brand, right. So as the Brian Jain and you know, they are incredibly productive, those young ones, because what I hate seeing is, you know, seeing a young adult person leave Adelaide, they go to a place like Melbourne or Sydney, and they get married to a Victorian or someone from New South Wales, they have kids over there. And, and you either don't see them come back, or they don't come back for 20 years. So they're paying taxes in a different jurisdiction, you know, the purchasing property and perishables in a different jurisdiction, we're not seeing any economic benefit from that. So that is a that is a that is a huge drain. So if we can make them sticky now, because of COVID. That's the opportunity that I think we should all embrace. I don't think that people should be afraid of growth. Here, there's often been that in binary conversation about growth and you know, congestion on our roads. We don't have congested roads, we don't have a huge CBD. I like to see our CBD more dense and taller and more productive. I'd love to see in a post pandemic environment, more people trading in their backyard. So balconies, like I'd love to see the CBD bustling with life and activity and economic output that will return that'll come. But in the interim, while borders are closed, let's make the most of it. But remind people all over the world how great a place Adelaide is South Australia is because of course we've got some great regions. Let's make the most of that opportunity. Now let's tell that story. Now. Let's pick up your pom poms and start shooting South Australia. Yeah, because there's a lot going on here.
Daniel Franco:I don't think you're ever gonna stop. People moving away. Right? I think it's just about how do we keep more here? But also how do we attract the Melbourne knights and the Sydney siders to come to Adelaide? Yeah. As opposed to staying there, then I think that's gonna be more of a question. How do we, you know, almost fair trade against each other? Yeah, we swap over and because the idea of staying in one place for your whole life can can cause anxiety in some. Yeah, I mean, you've you've moved away. You've moved around the place. Yeah. Most people. Not Most people. Some people may not want that from themselves. Therefore, that's why they move. I think it's just about how do we make Adelaide much more attractive place?
Daniel Gannon:So I think this is a really important conversation. This is a really important question. Economically, particularly, but at a time, and it's important to situate this, this conversation in the context of the work from home thing. Yeah. So I think the opportunity is A really unique one, because we're at this crossroad, historically, where employers are allowing their staff around the world to work from wherever they're like, you don't have to work from the office or get work from home. So if you're sitting in London, New York, if you're sitting in Singapore, or even places like Sydney at the moment, they're going through some incredible duress over there. If you're sitting there working from home in a place like Sydney, or really expensive capital city, in terms of housing affordability, and your boss is allowing you to work from wherever you like, I think that means that you can choose to live wherever you like. So if you can work from wherever you want, that means you can choose to live wherever you want. So if you can choose to live wherever you like, I think Adelaide makes complete sense. Because we do have a median house price that starts for five, and we are effectively a 20 to 30 minute city. So I think the proposition is really clear one. And then by the time you are working remotely, and living in Adelaide, I think you'll find pretty quickly that you just want to go back to the office in the CBD. Because you can because we are comparatively safe, we're comparatively healthy and resilient. So I think the proposition that pitch is a really simple one. But we should be shouting that from the rooftops we should be as a state advertising in every major newspaper across the world right now, talking about the virtues of this great CBD third most livable in the world in the world, most livable in this country. That's far more livable the
Daniel Franco:Melbourne Yes, yes. I'm an essay boy thrown through, you got no arguments for me. Right. We're coming to the, to the end of the of the podcast. What is the future for Daniel again, and you've been touted his few articles floating around, trade minister and all this sort of stuff. And what is your what is your future look like? Where did he place yourself? And what's your life look like in the next 510 years?
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, look, I'm still in my 30s. I'm 40 Next year, but I'm hanging on to my 30 As long as I can. Look, I've had a really good time at The Property Council. Like it's exposed me to some incredible people and businesses doing great things and crystal ball guises to risk takers to Job credit. There's, there's this incredible community out there in the property sector in this state. I've really enjoyed advocacy. I've really enjoyed standing up for people and achieving outcomes that benefit their business in this city. Look, the short answer is to cut to the chase. I don't know.
Daniel Franco:It's a very diplomatic answer.
Daniel Gannon:I've now spent seven years at The Property Council. And and by the way, I'm and I'm, I'm in no rush to leave Yes, great organization.
Daniel Franco:I think I think though, all people would be silly to think that they could hold you in one Rocky, you're pretty ambitious person. Right? And you want to do great things. You're an advocate for South Australia. If there's an opportunity for you to do more, you'd be silly not to look at it.
Daniel Gannon:Yes. Yeah. Look, that's exactly right. So, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a I'm an advocate for property owners. I'm an advocate for business owners and developers investors. And and I'll keep doing that for the time being.
Daniel Franco:You play that very well. Stripe. You didn't like I'm gonna cricket indoor, tennis. Tennis like I'm making really bad cricket. Unlike you. You were very good. Yeah, we weren't. We weren't diving. To finish off the finish of the podcast, we always ask a few quickfire questions. Just throw in a few Charlie's here in a couple bounces. Yeah, a couple of aimed at the teeth. They were very big on reading and self development at Synergy IQ which is, which is my business, creating synergy podcast listeners are big learners. As you can imagine. The topics that we talk about are always about how do we improve and get better? And where we're big readers. So what what's one book that you are reading right now?
Daniel Gannon:I'm reading the happiest man on earth by Eddie Jack is yeah, that I've heard. That's great read an amazing story. It's the story of a Holocaust survivor. It's a story of resilience and adaptability. My honors at uni was in politics and history. And I took a really strong focus on World Wars one and two, and actually wrote my thesis on how to how to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust in a post Holocaust world. I think I think from memory, the title was something like shadows of Holocaust past the dilemma of the fictional filmmaker. So how can how can we situate an horrific historical circumstance where we situate something that was so horrific, perpetrated by Adolf Hitler in Germany in a way that perpetuates the memory because the memories are really in important one, it's really important that we don't forget about those atrocities. So, I've, most of my books are history. Yeah, focused. But Eddie Jack has written this amazing story. I'm only halfway through, that's fine. But I would recommend
Daniel Franco:you to pick that one to get on to have you heard the victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning you would have read that as part of your incredible it's one of the all time greats and I think if you couple those two up, the psychology of, of the of the mind, and how we can get through anything is quite prevalent in today's society, what it
Daniel Gannon:is, and like, it's just unthinkable when you look back at some of those atrocities that took place. Yes, horrible.
Daniel Franco:Is there any book other than those historical books, any book that you could recommend to those who are looking to improve in their career and grow any personal development books that might you might have read or, or anything that that really had an effect on you, in your early on in your career,
Daniel Gannon:I spend a disproportionately large amount of my time reading two types of literature, one, newspapers, and two historic books about World Wars one and two, yeah, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, an amazing book. But looking that's probably to my own professional failing, to be honest,
Daniel Franco:no, but I think if you're, if you read those books have the idea of the mentality of the people that are in them, right. That's where the learning comes from. It doesn't necessarily be need to be nonfiction, those fictional books are
Daniel Gannon:great. So they are stories of resilience. They are stories of surviving and adapting to changing circumstances. So I guess the, the bridge between those types of books and those types of learnings to what I do, is about adapting and about changing and about being resilient. In the face of, you know, in my context of the Property Council, their policy is put forward and you get through them. And of course, that's in no way diminishing currently import of those books. But look on a daily basis. I read the Australian Financial Review, the advertising and daily. That's a lot of news every day. And one thing I've not been able to shake from working in politics, is reading tomorrow's news at about 11 o'clock every night. At some point, I've got a shake that Yeah. So I am a little news obsessed. In addition to reading stories about World Wars one and two,
Daniel Franco:there's a arguing in the world. This is not a question. There's an argument in the world that reading and watching too much news will have serious negative impact on your life. Just purely because of the negativity that comes out of those those newspapers. Have you found that to be an issue by consuming so much news?
Daniel Gannon:Well, I think at the front of newspapers, there's a there's a fair bit of bad news. But there's also a lot of California sort of human interest stories. But the deeper you go, particularly the business pages, there are a lot of positive stories about business. I mean, the advertisers Business Journal, almost on a weekly basis has incredible stories of innovation and growth. In Daly has a really unique range of stories from hard politics to, you know, sport and arts and culture. There's a lot of newspapers if if you willing to spend the time to look for them. I think it would be easy to say the newspapers only carry negative stories. A lot of the biggest stories are negative stories, because they're about that's what sells Yes, sometimes it does. And they're like crows, I think so most newspapers in the US and their fortune will there pleases me when they're playing well. We are going through a bit of a tricky time at the moment as a cloud, but we'll bounce back.
Daniel Franco:I hope not. I'm not. I'm not actually it's funny. I don't. I'm a good South Australian boy and don't support a South Australian team right now. That's fair. That is very strange. I just grew up following John. Great, great man, Gary Ablett had the number five on my back. And yeah, when the potent crows came into the competition, though, he stuck with that stuck with
Daniel Gannon:John J. Mater didn't bring it across. He played in a very simple it
Daniel Franco:must be I went out in the backyard and screamed out the boardroom when it's a good man. But Abbott was probably thrown around a little bit more. Yeah, sure. Well, I
Daniel Gannon:won't hold that against you know,
Daniel Franco:we've had a good run so I can't complain. I have that comes to to a crashing. It's what everyone hopes to go to ClubMate any other podcasts that you listen to?
Daniel Gannon:I listened to the corona cast every morning is just to get a quick fire daily update a nice bit of national context. Yeah, great.
Daniel Franco:If you could have three people for dinner. Cool, who would they be?
Daniel Gannon:As hard? Anyone? Anyone in the world? Anyone in the world for dinner?
Daniel Franco:And let's open that up to a dead or alive,
Daniel Gannon:dead or alive. Okay, dead or alive three people for dinner? Well, my wife has to take one of those seats. So that leaves or you
Daniel Franco:just won a lot of leaves.
Daniel Gannon:Look, I'm going to say, I'm going to Okay, I'll give you I'll give you my political dinner party list. I would love to sit down and have dinner with John Howard and Bob Hawke. Okay. And if I was able to bring one more in, in addition to manake, my wife, it's probably Paul Keating. I mean, these are, these are ghosts of politics past now, in terms of the way that that the politics and Parliament as an institution used to be played. There was some incredible characters in Parliament and politics, historically, and that's changed a lot now. Politicians, a lot of them have less conviction than people like John Howard, Bob Hawke, and poking. Back in their time politically, they were able to carry off great and lasting economic reforms, whether it's superannuation or negative gearing, or a lot of the reforms that John Howard put through in his 10 years, politics has changed a lot. policymaking has changed a lot. I guess that dinner would be a bit of a politically tragic dinner with that guest list, interesting conversation. Yeah, we'll be. But outside of that. Outside of that, I think it's hard for me on the spot.
Daniel Franco:Since we can stick with Oh, supposed to be quickfire questions?
Daniel Gannon:Yeah. Very good point well made.
Daniel Franco:What some of the best advice that you've ever received?
Daniel Gannon:Yeah, I mean, when I worked for Steven Marshall, he would almost on a daily basis, tell his team to not major in the minors. Yeah, I like that. And he would tell us that his father, Tony, told him that as a kid all the time, don't matter the minus, I think there's something really important in that, you know, and it's focusing on the bigger things. I guess my own personal adaptation of that is to get out of the weeds and get up into the clouds, you know, because if you let yourself get stuck in the weeds on a day by day basis, focusing too much on operational stuff, and you're not up there in the clouds, taking that strategic aerial approach, I think you're gonna miss some opportunities. Yeah. In addition to of course, just having that having that incredible focus on relationships in a place like Adelaide and yeah. So you know, if if you think that you don't have the confidence, or the ability to go out and you know, network or engage in business development you do, pick up the phone, send an email, have a coffee with someone buy someone lunch, because you never know where that relationship might take you in two years, five years 10 years time. And if you do that, if you implement that as a role you're gonna have a pretty big collective network by the time you leave that job and look for the next one.
Daniel Franco:Yeah, people will be knocking on your door Absolutely. Yeah. I love it. Don't measure demand is that in the minors is a big thing. Especially people in executive positions right? If you're you've obviously hit the executive position for the simple fact that you can think strategically you can think outside the square you are a leader of people therefore you shouldn't be delivering on the miners because yeah, you you're wasting can other ways to tell. Absolutely. If you had access to Time Machine I'm gonna be back to the future. Yeah. Yeah, access to a time machine. He go anywhere. Yeah, but what it says one trip and you know, fallen back, you got to come back. Where would you go?
Daniel Gannon:Probably 2017 to the MCG before the crows last year, Richmond would be one to try to change the course of history there but not
Daniel Franco:to get a snort be sniper in the stand and take a
Daniel Gannon:look, I I would actually love to. I would love to sane how my parents actually raised their kids how they did it in the caravan. Yeah, yeah. The Jayco in addition to you know, my I lost both my grandparents on dead side over the last five years. So my my my Pop past two I just before COVID. And the people like my nan and pop. You know, they came from a really different generation different times, they went through incredible technological change in their lifetime. You know, they came from a farm and built this great family business. But I would have loved to have sat down at the front bar at one of those regional pubs in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, to have a beer with my grandfather, Toby, just to, you know, sit down and get to know a bit, you know, I did there at that time, I think that would have been fascinating. Yeah. To, you know, to hop into that time machine of yours, and go back to some time. But in the 70s, or 80s,
Daniel Franco:it's an interesting point of view. We've had someone on the podcast before previously say that they would go back to the time where their grandparents were around at night and just hang around with them see what they're like. I just thought that was a really great, yeah,
Daniel Gannon:it'd be such a good insight. Yeah. Well, I'm the same, like, sitting in one of those pubs in, I don't know, Wollongong or Bill wheeler or somewhere else. After Papa just finished on the construction site. He's covered in bloody dirt and dust
Daniel Franco:with a No. Would you want him to know you at that point? Or would you go? Yeah, no. Interesting. Yeah. Interesting conversation. You'd learn a lot.
Daniel Gannon:I think that's right. I mean, you might leave the pub thinking, you know? What? I think that'll be great. Yeah, if we could,
Daniel Franco:brilliant. If you have one superhero power, what would it be?
Daniel Gannon:Well, my five and a half year old. One of his superpower abilities. Walter is his name, one of all these superpower abilities that he'd love to have is to be invisible and decline buildings. But mine. Look, I mean, it might be it might be being able to see what's over the horizon, some sort of, you know, future focused ability to see what happens in five years time. That'd be good. Yeah. Whether that's for investment,
Daniel Franco:walking m&a.
Daniel Gannon:The future is, you know, the Chicago Cubs
Daniel Franco:thing. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's my answer. I'm going forward by the American back. Okay.
Daniel Gannon:I think that's probably wrong. But there is something quite romantic about being Spider Man. Oh, yeah. Yes. Man. Flying through clouds. Yeah. Getting out of the weeds getting into the clouds. Yeah.
Daniel Franco:I love it. Perfect. And you are a father of three. So you've got to have a dad joke for us.
Daniel Gannon:I've got too many. And there's just like this. I bet. I mean, my kids get so annoyed with me. They're seven, five and two. They get so annoyed by
Daniel Franco:someone who actually appreciates it, they are bad, it's gonna be good.
Daniel Gannon:To me. I mean, my my seven and a half year old daughter, Delilah is just at that point in time now where she spends most of her day is like rolling her eyes at me. And like, I don't know, when she became 15. Maybe the show made? Maybe she jumped in that time machine and went forward is I don't know it. Look, there's way too many. And I don't want to entirely embarrass myself during the duration of this particular podcast to reveal many of them to
Daniel Franco:you to tell me one.
Daniel Gannon:I just don't have any that are springing to mind right now. Because I need to be in that environment in that zone with the kids and I think it's silly. Yeah, just being stupid.
Daniel Franco:No, he has to be one. I see why.
Daniel Gannon:So maybe what might have to do is just chalk this up to that to speed up my response.
Daniel Franco:No stress. Yeah. Well, that slide there. It is a hard one to come up with on the spot though. I should prepare people with this. You got to come to the podcast with that joy. I'm just one of those people that can rattle off sheet jokes at a whim or give me something else. No. Why? Now what the call for that tree? is dead. That's a shit joke.
Daniel Gannon:That's terrible. It's good. But like it's good, because it's so bad.
Daniel Franco:That's what I mean. Well, that's a bad joke. Yeah, yeah. Well, the second quality tree so he bought the first one.
Daniel Gannon:You're right, that's terrible.
Daniel Franco:And why the third quality tree thought it was good go home until you could just want one the Listen guy got hit by three. Anyway, you could just keep playing with it. So anyway, I said it for you. Thank you very much for your time today. Daniel. It's been amazing. Having a your insight into what's happening here in South Australia In Australia is is really is really great. Great to hear that insight. It's not something that we hear often on an everyday basis. Good luck with everything that you are doing as well with the future and thanks fine the the impact that you can on I can have on South Australians. I feel it's going to be great moving forward into the future. So
Daniel Gannon:you're very kind Daniel a bit. Thank you for taking time out of your day to come here and sit down with me. This has been really good fun. It's been a really good chat. Excellent.
Daniel Franco:Thanks, guys. Take care.
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