THIS week I’d like to talk a little bit about the changing world and the part that local government plays in foreseeing these changes and adapting infrastructure and services to suit. There’s an old quote that says, ‘generals always prepare to fight their last war’; we at council can’t afford to make this mistake and ignore the future to plan infrastructure and services to suit the past.

My Father, for example, wore a woollen suit to work every day of his professional life, as would every one of his colleagues. A mere two generations have passed and yet you would be hard-pressed to find people in that same profession who would even consider dressing that way. The wool industry has been faced with moving tastes but has been slower than many to adapt to changing fashions. 30 years ago, we were producing a billion kilograms of wool a year in Australia. We have seen a sharp decline in our lifetimes, now we’re producing less than 300 million kilograms and unfortunately the price of that wool currently sits at a very low ebb.