I am pleased about that and it's good to get views like these -...

I am pleased about that and it's good to get views like these - I am far from perfect. Maybe there's some deterioration to come in AUS with the slowdown in LNG (Queensland) and Iron Ore etc in WA but we are close to the bottom. While immigration is going strong housing development is OK.
A utilization of 65% is not that bad - it should be around 85%. While it would be ideal to charge all your time someone in the office may ask you a question, maybe you have to bid on a project or research. Financially of course that's the profitability down a lot if we drop to 65% and it sucks for staff morale if people are not busy.
Maybe the people you were talking to were charging at 65% - the reported figures from the business are higher if i recall? If Australia drops to 65% utilization it would be a significant deterioration from here.
The way it works though - some people are 85-90% and some charging 30%. When it comes to making hard decisions it makes managing a business like this fairly simple right?
That's one of the reasons I quite like this kind of business - happy to be in for the long haul.