Think Tank: Greg Bell

RAY White’s Bell brothers are two very different men – luckily they have shared the same goals.

Director of Ray White Commerical / Industrial Gold Coast at The Ray White Surfers Paradise Group, Greg Bell, for Think Tank feature. Picture: JERAD WILLIAMS

RAY White’s Bell brothers are two very different men – luckily they have shared the same goals.

“We don’t cramp each other’s style, we respect each other’s opinion. When you’re in partnership with your family, there’s great strength in that. It’s a comfort to know that you don’t have to watch your back because you’ve got your family there. To me, Andrew is like a soulmate and I’m very proud of what he’s done and what we’ve done together. ”

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What they’ve done since joining the Ray White group in 1985, is progressed from no pay – Greg worked nights as a glassie at a pub – and a shared car to running a thriving business with 260 employees. “Andrew is the CEO and runs the residential side and I’m predominantly commercial and industrial.

“I believe if you can make it in the Gold Coast in anything – as a hairdresser, in a coffee shop, real estate, anything – you can make it anywhere.”

Greg, whose twin brother James is a lawyer in Sydney, said he enjoyed training new staff members – and that the business had also helped boost the city’s population in a more literal sense.

“We’ve been a place of matchmaking and marriages. Our email addresses say ‘rwsp’ (Ray White Surfers Paradise), but we like to joke that it’s RSVP.

“Over the years, there would have been over 30 relationships. People come here and they meet their partner – there would have been well over 20 marriages – and probably more than 50 people who would have dated.”

What do you love about the Gold Coast?

“Lifestyle. I’ve had the fortune of travelling many places in the world and I grew up in Sydney and I always come back and pinch myself.

“Compared to what you watch on television, where you’ve been and so on – it’s just a wonderful place.

“It’s clean, there are no traffic jams here. The council do a wonderful job of the parks. Everything is good about the place, right down to the policing of the place.”

What do you think could be done better on the Gold Coast?

“The biggest restraint on the Coast is employment and we need to create industries that are outside real estate, outside development, outside tourism.

“That are real jobs and people will come and live here. We need to expand the population – it would be good to match the lifestyle with the opportunities for people to enjoy it.

“You can’t enjoy it if you haven’t got a job. It’s a wonderful place for families, but families can’t come here if they haven’t got jobs.”

In your travels, what have you seen being done elsewhere you think could work well here?

“The Gold Coast’s reputation is tourism and we need to combine what I’ve said about jobs but build tourism.

“I’m not a gambler, however I acknowledge and understand the value of having casinos.

“This State Government has an opportunity, and the Gold Coast would benefit greatly, if we relaxed our laws about that.

“If you’re a gambler, you can go to a pub and play poker machines, you can get on various internet sites, you can go to the track, you can go to the TAB – so I think we need to take that sort of moral cap off and acknowledge that it’s part of tourism.

“Wavebreak Island is a classic example, that should be rubberstamped and approved and that’s it.

“The Philippines are building their own Las Vegas virtually in the middle of Manila; they’re doing a massive job in Macau; Packer’s in Sri Lanka – it’s all over, we can’t get away from it.

“The Chinese will come and they want to have a one-stop shop and we have to be that.

“Jupiters, as good as it is, it just doesn’t cut the grade for what this town needs.

“Asian tourists will go to Melbourne and they’ll go to Crown Casino because it is a class act – we need a Crown Casino here on the Gold Coast.

“We can’t just say ‘there’ll be too many people and we want to keep it to ourselves’.”

If money, laws, time and approvals were no issue, what is one big project you’d undertake tomorrow?

“The council needs to be incentive-driven, to create opportunities for businesses to migrate to the Gold Coast.

“We need to house them
out in the suburbs and we
need to be able to offer companies big tax incentives, big setup incentives – a real honeymoon period financially, to come and live on the Gold Coast and bring jobs and bring opportunities.

“It’s about trying to create opportunities so that when people come and live here, they’ve got something to do.

“Imagine if we had a very serious industrial base out the back, if we had a Silicon Valley-type operation.”

What conversations should Gold Coast movers and shakers be having?

“I believe that we’ve got the best mayor and we’ve got a council that’s changed their thought pattern and I believe big business needs to work with council.

“For the first time in 25 years, I can see serious change in council’s thinking. They seem to be passionate about driving growth.

“Everybody else is treading water, but this is a growth council.

“We can really come up with some wonderful developments and we’ll need international money because the GFC wiped a lot of companies out.

“The Gold Coast has got to get rid of that white shoe brigade image and big business needs to work with council and the State Government about creating opportunities for businesses to come here.”