Local news for local people
Welcome to the Oberon Matters web site
No 125 - August 20, 2026
Just your average sunset.
 | Your Federal Member's Community Update Your community update from the Federal Member for Calare, Andrew Gee MP, can be seen here. |
Science Week comes to Oberon In 2026 it touched down in Oberon with a display and talks at the Malachi Gilmore Hall organised by the Oberon Citizen Science Network (OCSN). |  |
 | Book review: "Ensh*ttification" by Cory Doctorow Remember how good some things used to be and how they have decayed into sometimes unrecognisable piles of garbage? This book address the problem, identifies some culprits and suggests what we might do about it. If we can do anything al all. |
The Oberon taxi has new owners. $10 for trips anywhere in Oberon
on Sunday-Tuesday during August.
Ring
to book your ride.
Older people's media literacy can be boosted in just 60 minutes - new study I know I keep harping on about the sewer pipe of mis- and disinformation that floods us every day from social media (and real media, too). Some new research published in The Conversation indicates that older people might be more susceptible to this while some (but not all or enough) young people are taught something about critical thinking at school. The research went on to look for ways to correct this deficiency, and the good news is that there is some evidence that the problem can be averted with a quite small amount of education and training, although this needs constant reinforcement. |  |
 | Oberon Council Mayor's Column This fortnight's column from Oberon Mayor Andrew McKibbin can be seen here. |
Hey, teacher, teach those kids some more Despite what you might hear in some popular songs, the students at the schools around Oberon aren't just bricks in the wall. They are too busy learning things and doing educational activities. There's music, there's sport, there's zoos to visit. And more. |  |
 | There's sport, and then there's SPORT! Golfers golfing, netballers netballing, footballers chasing footballs (of various shapes), polocrossers doing whatever they do, school kids rushing around. A full week of activity across the sporting spectrum. |
Helping people cope with mental health issues.
See What's On for dates or contact Lincoln on
.
Oberon Community Services Expo 2026 The annual Community Services Expo was held at the Community Centre on August 6, showcasing the wide range of services and community groups that make Oberon such a vibrant and helpful place to live. The Section 356 grants for 2026 were presented at the same event. |  |
 | Media release: Council response to OLG ruling on Cr Hayden Oberon Council have issued a statement about the ongoing situation with some controversial comments made earlier this year by Councillor Helen Hayden. |
Another winter driving hazard to worry about Now that winter is here, this is your annual reminder about freezing fog. This is a road hazard that rarely gets mentioned but which can be very serious (and frightening) when it happens. |  |
 | Cars and coffee continues in the cold Sunday, August 2, was a bit cold (but it is Oberon in winter) but that didn't stop the regular monthly Cars and Coffee gathering. This happens on the first Sunday of every month outside and across from Peter's Cafe. |
Local Government Week colouring competition Local Government Week in Oberon included a colouring competition, with the entries on display at the Community Services Expo. |  |
 | What did you learn today? Lots! Including caves and cranes. Another educational week (and it was Education Week) for the schools around Oberon. |
A whole world of sport Well, not really the whole world but the bit of it that matters to Oberon. The sportsfolk were at it again, winning some and just missing out in others. |  |
The Burraga Sheep Show is happening on August 29.
It is not to be missed.
 | Well, would you look at this Congratulations to the finalists in the Outstanding Community Organisation category of the 2026 Oberon Local Business Awards.
Wishing them all "Good luck" would obviously be a step too far. |
It's here! It's finally here! After more inexplicable delays than anyone could have imagined, the Oberon Leagues Club has finally moved to its new home at the new Sports Complex. It even has a new name - Club Oberon. There's still a lot of work to be done and electricians from HV Electrical are dragging wires all over the place, the NBN people are scratching their heads about internet access, there's no signal to the TV screens and the member sign in system is waiting on the NBN, but Vanessa Booth has got the important parts working. Oberon Matters can confirm that the beer is flowing and very nice it is too. The bistro is still a couple of weeks away from opening but it will be worth it when it arives. Vanessa must be congratulated on the work she and others have done to get this far. Now all we need is for the football fields to be playable, but the season is almost over and there's time to get that right before the 2027 season. Keep up with what's happening at the club at their Facebook page. |  |
Photos of children on the Internet It's a tragedy of our times that anything can be abused by perverts. The latest is that AI systems are being used to exploit photos of children by removing clothing or putting other heads on bodies. The world's largest pornography site, PornHub, recently banned one of their advertisers who was paying a million dollars a year to advertise AI-generated child porn. That company is Australian. Elon Musk is threatening to sue a US state because it has banned Musk's Grok AI for the ease with which it can be used to produce images of naked children. Musk claims this is an infringement of free speech, a statement that renders sane people speechless. Legitimate search engines are blocked from indexing any images on this site but it is almost impossible to prevent web site content from being scavenged by AI robots and the only alternative is to not publish photos, so over the next few weeks I will be going through all the sports and school reports on the site and removing any photos in which kids can be identified. (This tiny and obscure site is continually trawled by AI bots, although all except ChatGPT try to remain anonymous. The papers published by Nine Entertainment are currently being hit 30,000,000 times a month by AI content thieves. It is work for several people just to try to keep up with the blocking.) The two articles below from The Conversation address the danger of putting your kids' photos online. |  |
 | A raffle for a very good cause There's anther raffle running in Oberon. Rotary are raffling a trailer, but not just any old trailer - it's one you design yourself up to a value of $7,000 and will come with $5,000 worth of things inside it. So if you want something to tow a car or boat, haul wood or farm supplies or cause your relatives to ask for help moving house you will get what you want. Tickets are $100 each, with only 1,000 being sold so get in quick for this opportunity. Look for the ticket sellers outside the Council building each Saturday morning. The money raised will be used in the campaign to reduce the level of domestic violence in the community. Despite the nonsense talked by a certain politician it is a serious problem, with 29 deaths so far in 2026 in NSW alone. And that's deaths, not nonfatal assaults. (See the stats here.) Whatever the number of assaults, it's too high if it's over zero. This is a very worthy cause indeed and is typical of Rotary's work in the community. See what they are up to at their Facebook page. |
Whole lotta learning going on In the chilly hours and minutes of an Oberon day, the schools keep on filling students' heads with facts and stories. |  |
 | The sporting life The chilly weather didn't keep the sportspeople of Oberon at home in front of the fire. They were out there chasing results |
Visitor statistics
August 6, 2026
Here is what has happened around this site over the last three months
| Month | Unique visitors | Most read page in the month |
| May | 10,231 | Review: "AI Snake Oil" by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor |
| June | 15,656 | Some good news for a change (2024!). This hit the top spot in the last two days of the month, edging out This week's Moron Alert which had been at the top since the day it was published. Strange days indeed. |
| July | 14,531 | New owners for Oberon's taxi |
The number of unique visitors during July reported by the server log analysis software was 20,633. This was adjusted downwards by the 2,707 attempts to access the Wordpress administrator login page. (Just as well I don't use Wordpress, isn't it?) It was also adjusted for the totally unbelievable 3,395 hits on First Edith Seasonal Markets for 2026. The numbers do not include the 4,552 attempts by anonymous "search" engines to access the site. This might be a small and obscure web site in the scheme of things but it is still under constant attack by AI parasites trying to steal the content. Only ChatGPT identifies itself (twelfth most common crawler during the month) but it is a full-time job to track the rest and block them (if they can even be identified).
The short version (or TL;DR in net.speak) is that a lot of people visit the site each month but the figures are inflated slightly by visitors who are not welcome.
"Unique visitors" counts IP addresses that have connected to the site at least once during the month. It doesn't include search engines, but even if it did Google and Bing (who index the site at least once a week) would only be counted as one visitor each. Put another way, it is the lowest estimate of the number of visits to the site during the month.
The Oberon Military Museum is open every Wednesday and Friday
from 12:30 to 4pm
and on Saturdays and public holidays from 10am to 4pm.
Stories and articles for the most recent three weeks appear on the front page.
For earlier stories
see the Site History page.
We would like to acknowledge the Wiradjuri, Gundungurra and Dharug nations as the traditional custodians of the land on which we live and work and we pay our respect to Elders past, present and future
Site last updated on August 19, 2026
