Locked into Bad Decisions

Locked into Bad Decisions

If it weren’t for the restricting and tactless decisions that continue to be made by the Melbourne Market Authority, the similarities between the Melbourne Market and a prison facility would almost be funny.

Alcatraz Prison

Melbourne Market Buyers Walk

Looking at these pictures side-by-side the similarities are alarming, but if it was just about looks this could easily be brushed aside. The parallels continue with the guard-like MROs patrolling the buyers walk, and the secured perimeter that prevents anyone entering without the MMA’s knowledge. But the resemblance goes deeper; like an overzealous warden the MMA knows they have a captive audience and are using this to extort the market community.

We have seen small signs of this before, like the kickbacks they have organised off the back of the market’s electricity system and are likely also getting with the diesel station that’s under construction. But the most unmistakable case of this is the recent resurfacing of the MMA’s attempts to raise the cost of leases. The greed of the government authority was clearly shown when they were looking at adding a ridiculous 20% increase to leases last year, but after the market community fought back they reduced this amount to an increase of 4% for 3-year lease holders in August 2018. It seems the MMA have already forgotten the fairness that our leaseholders fought for barely 6 months ago and have reverted to their miserly tactics. In March 2019 they raised the rents of the few leaseholders in the market who had 3.5-year leases by an additional 2.5%, and this is on top of their 4% increase from last year.

Fresh State have already lodged an objection to this unfair rent hike, not only for the obvious increase to the price of doing business but because it puts one set of leaseholders out of step with the rest of the market. It seems that while the market is in the hands of those who only care about the bottomline these bad decisions just keep coming. Perhaps when the state government’s promise to review market operations is finally fulfilled we will see a change for the better? We can only hope.