Local news for local people
Opinions
There are opinion pieces in the archives.
Comments about matters of local interest that express personal opinions rather than news reporting.
They Say They're Saving a Forest. They're Really Saving Coal. There's that old saying: "Follow the money". Social commentator Frackman Project has done a bit of research into what is going on around Oberon. It's worth a read. |  |
Mayoral Message: Request for Respectful Debate The investigation into the feasibility of constructing and operating The Pines Wind Farm is a highly significant issue that has generated strong and differing views across our community. Mayor Andrew McKibbin asks for politeness and restraint. |
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. |
 | 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. |
Editorial: Be careful what you wish for
August 27, 2026 in Opinion
Someone has come up with a very silly idea about how to protest against wind towers. What is even sillier is thinking that it might work.
See the editorial here
This week's Moron Alert Perhaps I should make this a regular weekly feature like Sport and Schools, because it seems that there's no shortage of idiots around Oberon. This week it's someone with almost negative driving skills who decided that the new Sports Complex would be the place to try out driving a 4WD on dirt. There's that old saying about the inability to drive a nail into a piece of balsa, and it certainly applies here. And if the moron is offended that's a good thing. |  |
 | Parents for Climate picnic On Saturday, May 30, Oberon Matters was a guest at a picnic at the delightful 3 Veg Farm in Bathurst. (Yes, a real vegetable farm right among the houses in Bathurst!) It was organised by the Bathurst branch of Parents for Climate to raise awareness of the need to fight back against the flood of dis- and misinformation coming from the opponents to renewable energy projects in the region. There were lots of people there with their kids (who will inherit whatever Earth we old folk leave behind) and the gathering was around an open fire heating up soup for lunch and boiling water for tea (and nothing makes tea as nice as water boiled in a billycan). Councillor Elaine West from Bathurst Regional Council spoke as did Jack Fry, President of the Bathurst Community Climate Action Network. Someone also spoke about the situation in Oberon. It's too easy to think that the people with the loudest voices are the only ones who should be heard and whose position has much more support than it really has, so it was educational to meet some of the quieter speakers presenting a different point of view. |
Checking the facts I was recently pointed to a court case as evidence that a court had ruled on a particular matter with the suggestion that the ruling would apply in totally different circumstances to a totally unrelated matter and a second case where the result was nowhere near as favourable as was being suggested. The assumption was that nobody would read the actual court papers. This reminded me of a piece I wrote for Australasian Science magazine a few years ago about the difficulty of checking all the "facts" in a story. |  |
 | Big problems, simple answers. American journalist H L Menken is often quoted as saying "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong". This has been amply exhibited by two events affecting this part of the world right now - the closure of Victoria Pass and the price and availability of fuel following events in Iran. |
Words fail me, like a 195 year old bridge We are a quarter of the way into the 21st century and we have discovered that road transport to the western half of the state depends on the integrity of a causeway built by convicts in the 1830s. Mitchell Causeway (the "Convict Bridge") on Victoria Pass has cracks and the road is closed in both directions until ... . Well, until we don't know when. Lets just drive b-doubles through the middle of Lithgow until someone works out what to do. |  |
