As New Zealand Cricket looks to deal with the areas of club cricket, secondary schools cricket and a development plan for areas below first-class and international play, an address by Australian development officer Gerard Clarke today was especially enlightening.

The Australians have just completed a review of the direction they will take in their cricket over the next four or five years and those attending the New Zealand Cricket development conference heard that local problems are no different to those confronting the Australians.

Clarke told the New Zealand group that while a development plan was a definitive statement, it could only be for the moment, and a little beyond, because development was always evolving and you could never be happy with everything.

But in a bid to best understand what the needs of cricket might be in the future, the Australians had gone out and talked to education authorities about where they saw the game going in five to 10 years, and to business people who were only prepared to look two years ahead and to cricket icons like Richie Benaud.

"We have to know how things are going to be looking down the line," Clarke said.

"When you are at your best, that's when you've got to change," he added.

And Clarke said, after having been out to New Zealand Cricket's Academy complex at Lincoln University today and being most impressed with what he saw, he would be going home to recommend that Australian Cricket do something more about reviewing its academy set up in Adelaide.

One of the things the Australians would be doing in the future is taking a much broader approach to development. They will be working with indigenous cricket, multi-cultural cricket and various forms of the game.

One of the big areas of action in recent times in Australia has been in secondary schools cricket where the Super 8s have proven a big hit with 2000 teams involved in competitions.

Out of the Australian review a formula has been established which will see interaction between community cricket, high performance cricket and education and training through all levels.

Education was necessary for coaches, umpires, administrators and groundsmen while those efforts would be backed with information management which would allow for easier assessment of trends in the game. Backed with performance measures and the development of resources this would have benefits at both the lowest and highest levels of the game.

A key element was the retention of volunteers who made the club system the real strength of Australian cricket.

Assistance would be provided to allow these volunteers to do their job, not to take over their jobs.

The last thing that was wanted was for those volunteers to walk away from what they were doing because of interference from outsiders, he said.

Other problems shared between the two countries were the migration to cities, changes in family structures with more single parent families, increased hours of work, declining standards in the national health and education being outcome driving.

Club cricket was under pressure in Australia and leadership was lacking at times and a clear definition of roles at various levels of the game was required. However, the review had ensured these issues would be addressed.

Australia's vision for its development role was, "to be recognised as the world leader in game development."

With far greater resources than New Zealand to call on that is a realistic goal, but New Zealand's requirements are no less than Australia's and the task ahead was rammed home by Clarke to the local conference.

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