THE Bathurst Winter Festival is maintaining its popularity, with a good crowd attending on Saturday evening.
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Amusingly, the most popular attraction is the guard rail on the ice rink, where would-be skaters cling for grim life while their legs go in alternate directions. This seems to be great fun, however, as they all have wide smiles on their faces.
The ice rink is finally a reasonable size, however, I’m not sure closing off the main east-west transport link for almost a month is justifiable.
For mine, Church Street between Ribbon Gang Lane and the Scott Centre near George Street is the more appropriate location for the ice rink to minimise disruption to the majority of Bathurstians.
Challenging times
THE Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) has banned FIA GT3 cars from participating in the Challenge Bathurst event to be held later in the year, which is not good for the Bathurst economy, as major GT3 teams like Porsche and Ferrari used this event for unofficial test days prior to the Bathurst 12 Hour.
Walkinshaw Racing Porsche participated in Challenge Bathurst last year, then hired the track for a day to promote its product to clients, bringing valuable dollars into the region.
I hope Bathurst Regional Council makes representations to CAMS to throw out this ban, which appears to be a power play.
If council doesn’t, it should investigate Australian Auto Sport Alliance, an alternative motor sport licensing body, as I think CAMS is getting too big for its boots.
Jolted by prices
ELECTRICITY and gas prices continue to dominate domestic politics throughout Australia. Retail sales stopped dead in their tracks just over three weeks ago when every news item was dominated by all sides of politics attempting to get the upper hand in this debate.
Concern over looming hikes in prices sent shoppers into hibernation.
A national strategy is clearly required as, to date, “hot air” is the only result of the verbalising by politicians.
Personally, the greatest rip-off of constituents in NSW by all elected governments over the past 30 years is the systematic milking of electricity asset profits by the State Government for use in roads, education and health, to name a few.
Those same government-owned electricity assets then significantly increased in price to pay for upgrades to the network. Essentially, we have paid twice for the privilege.
Numbers games
IF the rumours are true, it appears at least 10 tickets will be formed by candidates at the local government election in September, which I believe ensures one thing: the vote will be diluted, ensuring only the number one on the ticket will get elected. Everyone else is wasting their time.
Thumbs up
BATHURSTIANS supporting the Bathurst Winter Festival once again. Hats off to McDonald’s Bathurst for seeing the value in being the major sponsor.
Thumbs down
LACK of a national energy policy to ensure users of gas and electricity pay a fair and equitable price for the product.