Bathurst councillor Jess Jennings has turned to Australian treasurer Joe Hockey in his bid to get a $2 coin minted to mark Bathurst’s bicentenary.
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Cr Jennings’ petition on change.org – the website where anyone can start a petition and try to mobilise support – asks Mr Hockey to celebrate Bathurst’s bicentenary in 2015 with a commemorative $2 coin to recognise Australia’s first inland European settlement.
The councillor has already shown he will not take no for an answer.
When the Royal Australian Mint turned down council’s initial request for a commemorative coin last year, Cr Jennings asked council to write to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office.
Mayor Gary Rush refused, saying council was keen for the prime minister to visit Bathurst during the bicentenary and he wanted any correspondence with the PM’s office to be “as meaningful as possible”.
“Every cent of the $2 coin will symbolically represent each of the 200 years in the history of Bathurst to 2015.”
“I don’t see what we have to lose by asking the question,” Cr Jennings said at the time as he pushed for the letter to be written.
Cr Jennings has since received support from Labor’s opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon and shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.
Cr Jennings says minting a commemorative $2 Australian currency coin that marks Bathurst’s bicentenary would serve Australia’s national interest by highlighting the rich heritage of rural and regional Australia.
In his spiel on change.org, Cr Jennings explains that Bathurst is the first inland European settlement in Australia, and was proclaimed on May 7, 1815 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie.
“This milestone in Australia’s development is of national significance and should be recognised appropriately by the minting of a $2 coin in general currency circulation,” he says.
“Every cent of the $2 coin will symbolically represent each of the 200 years in the history of Bathurst to 2015.”
Cr Jennings says the image of Macquarie’s original proclamation flag staff would ideally be featured on the commemorative $2 coin.
He adds that Bathurst provided many “firsts” for inland Australia and has matured to become a city that is justifiably representative of the heart of rural and regional Australia.
He says the first inland agriculture, in the form of cultivated cropping, was established in Bathurst.
The city also had the first inland hospital, police, jail, law courts, post office and gallows.
“Significantly, Bathurst has provided major economic, social, environmental and cultural contributions to the development of NSW and the great nation that Australia has become today,” he says.
People who support the proposal can sign the petition here.
The Mint in Canberra has previously advised there would not be enough time to produce the commemorative coin.