Venture: Australia : The Land Down Under Brings Out Pioneer Spirit in Californians
Dennis Bramnick is about to uphold the family tradition of heading West in search of a better life. His grandparents came to the United States from Russia. His father migrated to Los Angeles from the East Coast, with stops in Michigan and Arizona. In early May, Bramnick and his wife Cathy plan to fly off to Australia, start a new life and, they hope, strike it rich.
Bramnick has big plans, and he talks with the confidence of a seasoned entrepreneur, although, in fact, the 37-year-old Costa Mesa man is about to embark on his first business venture. After three years of planning, Bramnick has sold the Australian government on his idea to start a chain of up to 15 Southern California-style Mexican food restaurants over the next 10 years in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.
“I’m putting all my money on this horse, or as the Australians say, I’m taking a punt. But I also think I have a definite advantage over Australians in terms of how to market an idea, and I see a tremendous demand developing over there for restaurants,” said Bramnick, a former restaurant manager.
Whether his bold ambitions are ever realized, Bramnick is just the sort of American capitalist that the Australian officials would like to see wheeling and dealing in their country. So anxious is the government to import the American entrepreneurial spirit, not to mention American capital, that it launched a West Coast road show in October designed to sell American business people on the economic opportunities of the land down under.
“Americans seem more freewheeling than Australians,” said Gary Day, the North American commissioner for the state government of New South Wales in Los Angeles. “The work ethic is very strong, and there’s a lot we could learn from them.”
This week, the Australian Consulate office in Los Angeles is trying to persuade a few more Southern Californians in two all-day seminars, one in La Jolla on Tuesday that attracted about 65 people and the other in Irvine today. The conferences are intended to give the same sell job to business people that actor Paul Hogan has so effectively delivered to American tourists.
While Hogan touts Australia’s white beaches and shrimp on the “barbie,” the consulate emphasizes the country’s proximity to the huge markets of Asia and the Pacific Rim and talks of an economy in transition from one based on agriculture and mining to manufacturing.
In return for a good idea and at least $350,000 to back it up, Australia’s Business Migration Program will provide a visa, some business introductions, economic projections and lots of moral support.
Americans may find that they need at least that to adapt and survive in a country with powerful labor unions and a 54% corporate tax rate, one of the highest tax rates in the world.
The Australian economy has been in rough shape in recent years. The world drop in commodity prices prompted Treasurer Paul Keating to say in 1986 that Australia would soon become a “banana republic” if steps were not taken to reform the economy and expand markets.
Despite many reforms instituted under the Labor government led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, including a series of devaluations and tax breaks for research and development, the country continues to rely on agriculture and mining: Sheep and wool are still the biggest export items in Australia, while manufacturing accounts for less than one-tenth of the country’s exports.
Australian officials and others who watch developments closely in Australia agree that the business community in that country generally lacks the managerial and marketing skills that are taken for granted in the American business community.
Using Life Savings
“There is not much entrepreneurial talent in Australia,” said Edward J. Blakely, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and a consultant to the state government of Victoria. “The Australian mentality is to go work for a factory and then retire.”
With confidence in his business skills and the prospects for economic growth in Australia, Bramnick has sunk his life savings into his dream. He has lined up three other investors, two Australians and one American, to raise a total of about $560,000 (U.S.) to start a waterfront restaurant in Sydney that Bramnick hopes, one day, will be the cornerstone of a resort empire. His plan is to open two restaurants a year for seven years once his first venture takes hold.
Scott Wilson is one former Californian who can attest to the opportunities of doing business in Australia. Wilson moved to Warrawee, a suburb of Sydney in 1986 from Long Beach with his wife Kristine and their six children. Wilson, who owned a swimming pool maintenance service in California, has opened two retail and wholesale bridal wear stores, one in Sydney and the other in Adelaide, both of which he characterizes as “very profitable.” A third store in Melbourne will open next month.
Leonard and Susan Wilson, no relation to Scott Wilson, will leave for Australia with their three children in the next few months with hopes of making a living out of a business sideline they developed at home: The Wilsons built 10 houses during the past 14 years, living in each for a short time and then selling at a profit.
The Wilsons said they paid $150,000 (Australian) to buy a small harbor front lot with a boat dock in a place called Runaway Bay, near the town of Surfers’ Paradise and about 40 miles south of Brisbane along the Gold Coast. They have secured a $200,000 loan from Wespac, one of Australia’s largest banks. Once they build their own house, they hope to build others on land borrowed from developers, sell the houses and pay back the landowners in the process. This form of development is common in Australia, they said.
Emigration Rate Higher
Obtaining the loan, which they intend to use for construction costs of their home, was an easy matter. “The banks seem to have a little more faith in you than in California,” Leonard Wilson said. “For the small businessman in California, it’s tough to get a loan.”
That’s the kind of message the Australian government is working hard to communicate, and with some success.
The pace of emigration is running at about twice the rate of a year ago, according to Michael Cain, a vice consul in Los Angeles. In the six months ending in December, 120 American citizens applied for visas, of whom 53 have been approved. Those 53 people will bring $7.4 million (Australian) of foreign exchange into the country. Those who have not yet been approved will probably succeed in eventually getting their visas, according to Cain.
That compares to a total of 61 American business people who emigrated under the program in the 12-month period ending last June, Cain said. In that year, American business people brought in $6.7 million. A total of 2,500 Americans emigrated to Australia during the period.
Bramnick said he and his wife are going to Australia with no illusions.
“Australia has sort of become the ‘flavor of the month’ in California, but we have been planning to do this for a long time and we know what’s involved.”
On one of three extended trips made over the past three years, he recalled, Bramnick was initiated into the Australian way of doing things while meeting with prospective financial backers.
“We’d spend three to four hours on lunches in which business never came up. I didn’t want to be offensive and pop a business question at the wrong time, so we’d sit there until four or five o’clock in the afternoon drinking wine and cognac, talking about everything but business.”
“When I finally brought up business, the reply was always, ‘She’ll be right,’ or, ‘No worries mate.”’
Nor does Bramnick hold out fantasies about life in a tropical paradise, since he understands that the vast majority of the country’s population lives in cities and nearby suburbs. “The rush hour traffic is as bad as anything you see here. There is smog and, surprisingly, there are a lot of violent crimes, based on what I’ve read.”
California Too Fast Paced
Still, some of the drawing cards for Bramnick and others are access to unspoiled beaches, wide open country and a society that they believe is not caught up in materialism.
“There’s not an easier or better place to make money than in California,” said Leonard Wilson. “But I can’t see myself getting old here. There’s no room or respect for old people here. It’s too fast paced.”
Scott Wilson said he could probably expand his business to a chain but prefers to keep his business small so he can spend time with his family and his church group.
“I’m living better here than I could have ever lived in the United States,” he said.
