Local news for local people
Welcome to the Oberon Matters web site
No 128 - September 17, 2026
Oberon isn't all pine trees. (Boyd River camp
site, Kanangra-Boyd National Park)
Your Federal Member's Community Update Your community update from the Federal Member for Calare, Andrew Gee MP, can be seen here. |  |
Opinion - When adults behave like children Oberon Men's Senior League team won the Grand Final and made us all proud. Then they did something that should make us ashamed to even know them. |
 | Rockley turns 175 It's not often that a town turns 175 so it was a pleasure to go to Rockley for the birthday party. |
National Collaboration Resolves Insurance Concerns for Landholders living near Renewable Energy Projects A lot has been said about the liabilities of people living near renewable energy projects, much of it scaremongering and disinformation. This media release from the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner (AEIC) should dispel most of the concerns. |  |
The Oberon taxi has new owners.
Ring
to book your ride.
 | Showing support for Nepal It would have been impossible for anyone anywhere near a television, radio, newspaper or social media outlet recently to be unaware of the appalling disaster in Nepal. Over the weekend of September 11,12 and 13, Brenda Lyon opened up her garden at Brydie Park to bring everyone in Oberon together with the local Nepalese community to reflect on the disaster and show support. |
Moron Alert It was a lovely day for the 175th birthday of the town of Rockley. Unfortunately, some people decided that their convenience overrode other people's needs. |  |
 | There's always a time for learning That's a true statement and it certainly applies to the schools around Oberon. And speaking of "around Oberon", Rockley Public School has been added to the collection from this week. |
Meanwhile, out on the sporting field There was a weekend, so there was some sport. It is (almost) always thus. |  |
The RFS in Oberon is looking for more people. Click for more information.
 | 2026 Oberon Business Awards Oberon's Night of Nights happened on Friday, September 4, when a capacity crowd filled the auditorium at Oberon RSL for the annual Business Awards presented by the Oberon Business and Tourism Association. |
Oberon Council Mayor's Column This fortnight's column from Oberon Mayor Andrew McKibbin can be seen here. |  |
 | Suicide awareness and prevention Suicide is a big but often hidden problem and Oberon Mens' Shed will be doing something about the problem in November this year with a series of talks by experts in the field. The event will be organised by the Australian Mens' Sheds Association and Talk2MeBro. |
Guest commentary: Enough of the fear, aggression and division. Oberon Councillor Helen Hayden is disturbed by friction and even some hostility around Oberon and would like people to show a little more respect and tolerance for views and opinions that they might not agree with. |  |
 | When too much schooling is not enough The big news around Oberon's schools in the last week was Fathers' Day, but that wasn't all that went on.
And there are lambs! |
The sport goes on regardless The seasons arte winding down for most sports around town. There are a few Grand Finals coming up and we wish the teams that have made it this far very good luck (but good playing beats luck any time). |  |
Helping people cope with mental health issues.
See What's On for dates or contact Lincoln on
.
 | Burraga Sheep Show and Country Fair The population of Burraga seems to be only about 66 people so it was appropriate that this year's Annual Sheep Show should be the 66th edition. Oberon Matters went along to take a lot of photos and to enter the photography competition (Spoiler: Second place.) |
Limoncello at the Rockley Pub Oberon Matters caught up with the musical duo Limoncello at the Rockley Pub on Saturday, August 29, and a delightful afternoon it was. The food was as good as usual for the pub (even if a bit more expensive than most pub menus), the beer was cold and the sunshine outside wouldn't have been out of place at a Mediterranean resort, so adding some fine music made it the place to be. |  |
| Oberon Council Mayor's Column This fortnight's column from Oberon Mayor Andrew McKibbin can be seen here. |
Visitor statistics
September 3, 2026
Here is what has happened around this site over the last three months
| Month | Unique visitors | Most read page in the month |
| 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 |
| August | 10,907 | What's On In Oberon |
It might look like there has been a big drop off in site visitors but it's actually a move towards something realistic because the web hosting company and the statistics analysing place are trying to get a handle on visits by AI content thieves. These can be very hard both to identify (they change like chameleons from day to day) and they are quite prepared to ignore the usual conventions that restrict access to web pages. To ChatGPT's credit, they identify themselves and they crawl more pages here than either Google or Bing each month (GPTbot is the seventh most common crawler at this site).
One unexpected contributor to the increased traffic has been identified. For over 20 years I ran a successful online magazine called The Millenium Project. Other than search engines it is now the second highest referral site after Facebook. I can only assume that my old fans have asked themselves "What is he doing now?" and followed the link there that sends them here.
"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.
Relevant to the above statistics:
AI is eating website traffic, websites are blocking AI - and reliable information is getting harder to find If you've looked at a Google or Bing search lately you would have been presented with an "AI summary" before you got to the actual list of pages that contain what you are looking for. What isn't obvious is that these summaries reduce meaningful traffic to the sites that actually contain information (while spuriously inflating the visitor count). Not only that, AI is feeding on itself by crawling AI generated sites. There could come a day when it's virtually impossible to find reliable stuff without using another way to search for it. This article from The Conversation looks at the problem. (The good news is that the site search system here bypasses Google's AI BS and only provides links to pages on the site that contain what you are looking for. Google will probably eventually find a way to "fix" this, but until then ...) There is also an answer to the strange visitor statistics for this site (and any others, of course). |  |
 | Schools keep on schoolin' There's been so much happening at Oberon's schools that teachers' heads are spinning so fast that a hum can be heard all over the town. But that's a good thing, because school should never be boring. |
All the sport, all around The big news of the week is of course the Oberon Tigers senior men's team winning their second Grand Final on the trot. Lets go for the treble in 2027. Other sports happened of course, with the ladies who kick round balls going into the Grand Final and the men just one match away. |  |
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 September 16, 2026
