Simple questions not yet answered

Justice, fairness, equality or just good old fashioned common sense used to be such a simple thing. A man’s word and a hand-shake would seal the deal and a man’s integrity was as important as his kingdom.

These days it seems that everything requires legal definition, procedures, protocols, laws, contracts, insurance, liabilities, meetings, arbitration, triplicate documentation and litigation.

The past 18 months of dealing with the Fremantle Council and the Murdoch management would have been satirical theatre if anyone had any humour left.

Let’s just get it down to basics and stop all of the nonsense. Simple questions have not been answered.

(1.) Why do the Murdoch’s refuse to show their evaluation? If ‘Fair Market Rent’ has been assessed by an independent licensed valuer then give us his name and credentials and let us look at how he has arrived at these figures.

The council must have had a valuation done prior to renewing the head-lease; they increased the rent by about 12%. Why didn’t alarm bells ring when the Murdoch’s increased stall-holder rents by 80%? Why didn’t the council query this? Didn’t the Murdoch’s submit a proposal prior to them being granted the lease?

Even when the stall-holders spokesmen confronted the Mayor and predicted the fall-out and long term repercussions they were met with disinterest and dismissal. It was only after delivering a report from their QC that the Mayor sat up and took notice.

Months later very little had been done and again the stall-holders had to chase up their own evaluation to point out the obvious. Their figures also confirmed that ‘Fair Market Rent’ was approx 12%. However let’s not forget that the Murdoch’s lease was signed prior to the recession. The stall-holders were hit with their increases just before Christmas and just after it became apparent to Governments and businesses world-wide that retail in particular was going to do it hard.

Meanwhile back at the markets small businesses were being forced to shut down and walk away with nothing. Many letters of distress were sent to the Mayor and much was said about being bullied or priced out of business. To have security of tenure they had to accept the rent rises and without some form of lease agreement they were unable to sell anything. Many had paid tens of thousands of dollars for their shops and had built up their businesses and established goodwill and could have sold at justifiable profits. However, they could not risk signing onto the new agreements as the new rents would probably lock them into considerable debt or failure if they couldn’t sell out quickly.

Why was the term ‘Fair Market Rent’ used anyway? It’s a difficult definition by any means. Why not use CPI or not more than...?

Of course Fair Market Rent is usually determined by valuation and within the valuation comparisons can be made and explained. The Murdoch’s could easily show their evaluation and it would help to justify their argument. This lack of transparency creates suspicion and I’m sure I'm not the only one who has wondered if perhaps there never was one done?

While everyone is fart-arsing around stall holders are left without leases and feeling enormous pressure to just sign and hope for the best. Their option is simple: walk away with nothing, lose their initial investment, goodwill, and their livelihood and be left in debt and jobless or sign the new agreement, try to pay the high rents and pray that they can keep afloat or sell out.

This then becomes an even bigger problem for the others. The more people who sign on, the more the Murdoch’s can justify ‘fair market rent’. The definition of fair market rent can be argued that ‘this is what we have people agreeing to pay therefore it becomes fair market’.

If this happens then rent per square metre becomes a measure throughout the Fremantle CBD. All rent renewals throughout Fremantle will be evaluated on this artificially inflated price. Every business in Fremantle will be forced to either pay the higher rents or index the cost into their sales. That means that everything in Freo will cost more!

(2.)
Why did Freo council renew the Murdoch’s lease 2 years before the old one expired?

Conflict between the Murdoch’s, the council and the stall-holders began soon after the Murdoch juniors took over the lease from Murdoch senior. At one stage the Mayor was talking about buying out the remainder of the lease. I’m not sure of the finer details but it is on record that the Murdoch’s threatened to run the markets into the ground and sue the council. So what really happened? This is pure speculation but it seems to me that the council was bullied into that renewal.

One councillor stated outright at a meeting that he had felt personally threatened; another said she had felt intimidated and I noticed two other councillors nodding in agreement. Regardless of this, half of the councillors fiercely opposed the renewal but when two of these councillors were out of town the decision was made.

It’s really a matter of ‘the nature of the beast’. I have always believed that when someone shows you who they really are then it is very wise to believe them.

Why would anyone marry up for an additional 18 years when they only had two to serve? In retrospect it seems like there were other options so were those threats really the issue or was there something more going on?

With Tagliaferri’s term as mayor ending soon, I am left wondering if it was a matter of making sure the deal was done before Tags left office. If so - why?