BHP Billiton Minerals Australia president Mike Henry, above, warned in his address to the Melbourne Club that Australia could adapt to its changed economic circumstances or stagnate in the approaches of wealthier times. He believes it essential for the mining industry and government to lean into the hard changes required and to chase opportunities. He was speaking from a town hall built with the proceeds of the gold rush and acknowledged that the ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ of the nineteenth century would never have come about without mining.