MAYOR Gary Rush has defended Bathurst Regional Council forking out more than $10,000 to support a charity dinner at Sydney’s upmarket Quay Restaurant last year, saying it was a perfect chance to promote our bicentenary year.
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The Western Advocate understands council paid for two tables of 10 at a cost of $500 a head at the Special Olympics dinner.
And it is believed council also paid around $3000 during a charity auction to secure tickets to the 2015 Bathurst 1000 and a local accommodation package.
Cr Rush said he could not confirm how much council had paid to support the dinner but said they had grabbed the opportunity for him to be keynote speaker before a room of Sydney business people and invited media.
And he strongly rejected any suggestion that council’s support of the dinner was part of a deal with Bathurst’s bicentenary ambassador Paula Duncan, who is also a Special Olympics ambassador.
However, Cr Rush said it may have been Ms Duncan who arranged for him to be keynote speaker at the dinner.
“Council has not paid one cent to Paula Duncan and nor will we,” Cr Rush said.
“What happened here is that I had the opportunity to act as the keynote speaker at this function and I spoke about our bicentenary before a broad corporate audience.
“Of the two tables that council booked, one was for us to invite Sydney media types and one of those was a sub-editor of the Qantas in-flight magazine.
“And guess what we saw [in the November issue]? A spread on Bathurst. How much is that worth?”
Cr Rush said the accommodation package was passed on to a host of a morning television program and it was hoped that would bring more exposure to the region and its bicentenary during the 2015 Bathurst 1000.
“Here’s the thing, we can either be an entrepreneurial council and try to attract people to town or we can sit on our hands and do nothing like some other councils,” he said.
“Nobody complains when we play in the entrepreneurial space like our promotion with the Penrith Panthers, and this is the same sort of thing.”
Cr Rush also questioned the motives of people raising concerns about council’s support of the charity dinner.
“If it is a member of the public then they have every right to ask how council is spending money, but if it is a councillor then they have other means of finding out without going off to the media – or are they just trying to cause trouble?”
