COVID-19 seems to have touched every facet of our lives and now it is impacting on our democracy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
With no clear indication of how long the coronavirus crisis will take to play out, local government elections scheduled for September this year have already been postponed a year.
And that's probably not great news for Bathurst.
There is no doubt there are deep divisions within the current Bathurst Regional Council and genuine concerns over just how well this group of nine councillors can keep working together for the longer term.
Disagreements between some individual councillors have gone well beyond the policy debates we welcome from our elected representatives and spilled into very personal, sometimes ugly, attacks.
Then there was the disgraceful and anonymous letter sent to Councillor Jacqui Rudge seeking to have her step down from council "within seven days" or risk having a previous visit to Bathurst's Panorama Clinic made public.
It was the sort of dirty politics we would never hope to see in our city and, again, left many people simply shaking their heads at how it could happen in Bathurst.
The one saving grace in all of this had been the light at the end of the tunnel - the prospect of council elections in September that would give residents the chance to have their stay on the performance of the current council.
That will not happen now, meaning it will be the second time in four years that Bathurst's scheduled council elections have not gone ahead after the 2016 elections were delayed 12 months as the state government worked through its attempt to push through forced council amalgamations across NSW.
Spare a thought also for the councillors who had planned to retire at the coming elections; instead of six more months of a job some have grown not to enjoy they now face another 18 months.
Perhaps the only winner is mayor Bobby Bourke (pictured) who initially thought it would be a 12-month posting but now he has a full two-year term to make his mark.
That means Cr Bourke has the chance to see through to completion some of the project begun during his time in the chair, particularly the Winburndale Dam and stormwater harvesting projects.
And his opponents within the chamber will have another 12 months to watch on and ponder what might have been.