Gold Coast property industry Max Christmas was officially inducted into the Gold Coast Business Hall of Fame tonight.

 

The man who was known by the media throughout Australia as Mr Gold Coast was honoured at tonight’s 15^th annual Gold Coast Business Excellence Awards gala function attended by 500 leading business people at Jupiters Hotel and Casino.

 

The former real estate supreme first visited the Gold Coast as a four year old and started his first business when he still in his teens.

 

That business, a grocery store in Southport on the corner of Queen and Scarborough Street, quickly started to make money.

 

Mr Chrismas than invested his profits into a speculative property deal, which was successful.

 

Discovering a passion for property, he joined the very successful real estate agent Laurie Wall, who was known throughout Australia as the Mr Millions of Gold Coast Real Estate.

 

He says he learnt a lot from Mr Wall and went on to open his own firm Max Christmas Real Estate in 1971.

 

Mr Christmas was part a group of business people who successfully lobbied the Sir Joh Bjelke Peterson Government to scrap death duties in Queensland in 1977.

 

The move that led to a major population boom in Queensland and on the Gold Coast as interstate residents moved to escape the tax.

 

In 1985 Mr Christmas was among a trade delegation of 12 senior Queensland figures including Sir John Bjelke Peterson who visited Japan for the first time.

 

During this visit it was suggested that he come back regularly if he wanted to develop stronger ties. So for the next year he visited Japan once a fortnight.

As a result of his efforts, during the five years from 1985, Mr Christmas introduced over $3 billion worth of property investment in Australia to Japanese investors alone.

These property transactions included four International Hotels on the Gold Coast and three golf course developments.

In one series of deals he helped Japanese company Panasonic spend $1.5 billion in Australia. This included the purchase of The Chifley Tower, Australia's most prestigious office building in Sydney; the ANA Hotel in Surfers Paradise and the site of the Royal Pines Resort.

 

During the heady days of the 1980s he was also involved deals that led to the development and/or extension of Sanctuary Cove, Sea World, Hamilton Island, Marina Mirage, Bond University and Warner Brothers Movie World.

 

In 1995 he became one of the first Australian property figures to attempt to establish relationships in China. He has kept going back regularly ever since.

 

In 1997, he negotiated trade relationships with the Queensland and Chinese Governments which led to a deal with engineering specialists from Queensland helped to modernise China's new power stations.

 

His company now has strong ties with a number of Chinese companies include the  China International Trust & Investment Corporation (CITIC) in Beijing.

 

On the Gold Coast, Mr Christmas was himself a major property owner. At one stage he owned more than 30 buildings in Surfers Paradise.

 

He says that he is now retired but he still works four days a week and still owns 15 commercial properties in Surfers Paradise central business district.

 

Outside of his property career, he also was heavily involved in community and government organisations.

He was set up and sponsored Queensland’s first Neighbourhood Watch Association on the Isle of Capri.

In the same year he formed the Gold Coast Homeless Youth organisation with the support of the Federal and State Governments.

He served as founding committee member of the Gold Coast Arts Centre, president of the Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club, co-founder of the National Outrigger Canoe Association and was the founder of the Surfers Paradise Outrigger Canoe Association.

From 2001 to 2004, he served on the Gold Coast City Council representing Division 7, which takes in Surfers Paradise.

 

He was a founding member of the Griffith University Strategic Adviser Group and is deputy chairman of the Surfers Paradise "Heart of the City Advisory Committee".

 

When Queensland celebrated its 150^th birthday in June 2009, our business hero was named as one of the 150 Queenslanders who helped shape the State.

He has also served as the patron of the Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club, the South Coast Surf Life Saving Association, the National Outrigger Canoe Association and the Surfers Paradise Outrigger Canoe Association