Aus shopping centre magnate Warren Ebert slams Labor’s plan to bring Costco and Aldi to NT

The owner of the Territory’s largest shopping centre has picked apart a government election promise to provide free land for a non-mainstream supermarket chain to build an outlet.

The owner of the Territory’s largest shopping centre has picked apart a government election promise to provide free land for a non-mainstream supermarket chain to build an outlet.

Warren Ebert, owner of Sentinel Property Group, which bought Casuarina Square shopping centre in early 2022, said the plan announced by Chief Minister Eva Lawler last week to “roll out the welcome mat” was “disappointing”.

“It’s pretty disappointing that you’d have intelligent people that would say things that are so silly,” Mr Ebert told Mix FM’s Katie Woolf on Wednesday.

“They only had to pick up the phone and speak to a couple of people. Costco need half-a million people. Friends of ours own the Costco in Canberra and they had difficulty convincing them to come to Canberra where there’s 450,000.”

Costco at North Lakes in Brisbane. Picture: Lachie Millard

He said “there was not a chance in hell, no way in the world” Costco would come to Darwin.

“You could give them the land, build the building for them and Costco still wouldn’t come here and Aldi would never build a supermarket any more than five hours drive from a distribution centre.”

He said Aldi adapted that rule to suit the recent expansion into Rockhampton, which then facilitated stores in McKay and Townsville, but it did so by changing their model and introducing more onsight warehousing.

He said Costco eventually opened in Canberra despite the population shortfall with the support of the local government.

Summarising the government’s policy he said: “I understand their thought process, there just wasn’t a lot of thought put into it”.

Aldi supermarket in Mona Vale.

Mr Ebert ended a longstanding misconception not long after purchasing Casuarina Square that popular southern department stores like Myer or David Jones would one day set up shop in the Northern Territory.

“Department stores are what is holding big centres back,” Mr Ebert said.

“Centres that have real troubles have a department store.

“Big centres will now spend millions of dollars on food courts or entertainment but people aren’t going there for department stores. The more department stores you have the more problems you have.”

Former Chief Minister Shane Stone said when he was in politics, Myer had refused to open a bricks-and-mortar outlet in the Territory on the strength of catalogue sales.

Federal Solomon MP Luke Gosling also made a public appeal for Aldi to open a store in Palmerston.

A Costco spokesman declined to comment on behalf of the company and in June Aldi said it had “no plans” to open stores in the Northern Territory.

Chief Minister Eva Lawler defended the policy announcement.

“We know that Territorians are feeling the pinch every time they go to the check out at Coles and Woolies and that’s why I will fight to bring more competition to the supermarket sector in the Territory,” she said.