Just as importantly, council also now seems aware of just how sensitively communications with the local indigenous community must be handled.

A report to councillors last week detailed a massive cost blowout for the commissioning of heritage reports into indigenous artefacts on Mount Panorama.

The reports were needed as part of council plans for three developments on the Mount – the new go-kart track, the second circuit and an upgrade of camping facilities.

The bill for the report is now around $566,000, a figure that would have been fanciful just a few months ago.

It’s also a figure that previously would have drawn heavy condemnation from some councillors within the chamber. Not so this time, though.

Instead, the only discussion at last Wednesday‘s meeting focused on the economic benefit Bathurst draws from Mount Panorama each year and the point that half a million dollars pales by comparison.

No doubt, it did not hurt that Cr Warren Aubin – previously the most vocal critic of the mounting bills for Aboriginal assessments – was not at the meeting. He has previously accused indigenous leaders of holding the broader community to ransom over the development of Mount Panorama, but what we are seeing here is the (perhaps overdue) realisation from the local indigenous community that council should rightly be paying for its use of the Mount.

Wahluu has long been recognised as culturally significant for the local Wiradyuri people and it’s probably true that for too long their cultural heritage has been trampled in the development of Mount Panorama as the home of Australian motorsport. That’s not a particular criticism of council; rather, a comment on the reality of the broader community’s relationship with indigenous communities in past decades.

So now we are playing catch up.

Now there is an understanding that if we, as a community, is to profit from Mount Panorama then we should also be paying our dues to the traditional owners.

And if we want to dig up sections of the Mount, we must first investigate exactly what may be hidden beneath the surface.

If it costs $500,000 to do those reports, then so be it. We either pay the price or find somewhere else to race.