We gather here in the beautiful city of Gladstone at a testing time for our sector of government. The job of representing local communities has never been easy but the challenges that face local councils today are of a size and nature that would have been unimaginable a generation ago.
The theme of this conference refers to those waves of change that are affecting us. But I would rather focus on the second part of that theme: the oceans of opportunity that technological change has brought to our doorstep.
The opportunity is there for us as local councils to ride those waves of change to achieve better prosperity and quality of life for our communities.
And isn’t that what keeps us in this game? The opportunity to make a difference?