Portland, in the state of Victoria was the first council to receive a development application for wind turbines and now has enough in the shire to provide energy for several local towns combined. Portland mayor, Geoff White explains "Because there's a couple of hundred jobs involved, we believe this is a renewable energy hub here in Portland. Councils have an extremely important role...because of the issues that surround climate change globally. We would like to think that here in this Shire we are doing our bit to be part of the debate and to find our way forward to deal with the climate change issues that are emerging".