Although Bathurst is not my original home, I have come to see for myself the great big mixing pot of people who come from all different places in Australia and the world who can only be described as caring, compassionate and who are both accepting and welcoming of all races and cultures in our town.

I wanted to write to you so that I could tell the people who are tarnishing our town with hate and intolerance that they do not represent me, nor do they represent my family or my friends or the many great people we do have here in Bathurst.

In fact, I would like to make it known that the views of these people, who are the minority, who do go around spouting hatred, are far from welcome in a town like Bathurst.

I have lived here long enough to know that our community is the kind of community that does not stand for intolerance or ignorance but instead stands for fairness, equality and acceptance of all.

For anyone reading this who may be the type I am talking about, I would like to make myself very clear that your disgusting attitudes will never be accepted or seen as the norm here.

For anyone who may have had a part in any of the attacks and/or propaganda being spread around, I invite you to shut your mouths and/or leave town as soon as you can, because any kind of racism and hatred toward anyone is not representative of Bathurst on the whole.

From what I can tell, Bathurst is a community that does not stand idly by watching and/or encouraging such inexcusable attitudes, but instead will continue to fight against such behaviours by embracing and accepting everyone no matter what.

This is a community that does value people of all backgrounds and cultures and will continue to do because this is what makes our town so great.