The benefit to the State government these days is just the payroll tax and bragging rights for politicians about how many jobs they secured. The jobs figure relies on “the multiplier effect” - one “real” job supports about eight service industry jobs.
I remember writing a lot of ministerial letters when this game was being played during the Kennett years. usually there was no sale and I would write something like : “We understand that your business location must depend solely on your own commercial considerations” and fob them off with a telling of how great we were even though unfortunately we were not in a position to provide anything extra apart from our wonderful location, etc., etc. Please keep in touch with our Mr. Sunfish if we can help with any other matter.