Whilst I don't agree with Cr King about age being a factor, I think Albury Council and the people of Albury need to look at the composition of the council.

Yes, more younger citizens are needed on council, but so are people from different cultural backgrounds.

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A council needs to reflect the diversification of the community, and age should not be a barrier. I believe we owe a lot to our elders.

In regards to terms of councillors, in principle I support fixed terms. But how many terms is debatable as often putting an expiry period presents other problems.

Perhaps the real expiry period is the electorate?

Also, in encouraging a more diverse council than we need to consider meeting times, as 6pm on a week night may not be convenient to the ones being encouraged and there are also other meetings and functions of a councillor.

Some younger councillors and people from different cultures would be a start, as decisions of today's council will affect residents of the future.

ALBURY councillor Murray King is right to claim the city council doesn't represent our diverse community very well.

But he's wrong to focus on age when there are other shortcomings in the present mix.

For example, it's a council too heavily represented by business, professional or retired people, with hardly anyone who is an employee in an industry or trade job.

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And then there's the imbalance of having only two women among nine councillors, and no one who might represent migrants from non-English-speaking backgrounds of the past 20 to 30 years.

Politically, we have one declared Green and one Country Labor member so the strongest party in the area, the Liberals, are not, on the face of it, represented at all.

Interestingly, we have two medical practititioners but no one working full-time in education.

I am not criticising any present councillor.

After all, they were the people's elected choices in 2016.

Can we do any better in 2021?

The latest outbreak is about the Australian Open being held and how it put us all at risk.

The Open put huge pressure on health teams and could take us back to heavy restrictions.

Was it the pressure of the sports gambling companies and the power of the punt that kept the Open in place?

The risk was too great for little reward and massive consequences.

Why would having an event with people from many COVID infested lands get the go ahead and cause great risk for us all?

Let's hope if the outbreak gets out of hand a ring will be put around Melbourne now not later and the control point will not be at the Murray River borders.

Now is the time for Border leaders to get vocal towards the harm city function can cause us in Border towns.