John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I first entered politics I was responsible for most of western New South Wales all the way out to Broken Hill and Cameron Corner. I never dreamt that I would one day represent the town in which I was born and in which my mother and grandparents were born and died—that is, Bathurst, which is way to the east. My electorate now goes all to the way to the Blue Mountains, including Lithgow and Oberon and out to Forbes and Parkes. This coming Friday the ex-Mayor of Bathurst, Ian MacIntosh, has graciously accepted the job of opening my new office in Bathurst, which will look after the eastern side of the electorate while the Orange office looks after the western side.

Bathurst is quite an incredible place. It is the oldest inland town so registered in Australia. In 1862 it was made the headquarters of Cobb and Co. I have to say that Freeman Cobb is no relation. He was an American who came here, made a fortune, went back to America and lost it when he went home. Today Bathurst sits on the junction of the Great Western, Mid Western and Mitchell highways. It is the local government area in which the first mining, particularly gold mining, started in Australia. It is the part of Australia where, outside of the Sydney Basin, agriculture and mining really began, the oldest part of the serious side of Australian production.

It has a lot going for it. Not only is it incredibly old in Australian European settlement terms but it has architecture not seen in many places. It is a very old town and it has Sofala, which is Australia's oldest surviving gold town. It has Hill End, which in 1872 had the world's largest specimen of reef gold, the Holtermann Nugget, weighing 285 kilograms and measuring 150 centimetres by 66 centimetres with an average thickness of 10 centimetres. That is one heck of reef. I have no idea what it would be worth today, but I suspect we could all retire on it. That town grew to 8,000 people, making it one of New South Wales's largest inland towns at that time, with a kilometre of shops, five banks, two newspapers, a brewery and 27 hotels. I regret to say only one of those is left, the Royal Hotel. I have been a client there and I will be again.

The office in Bathurst will also look after Lithgow. Lithgow is, apart from being the home of—

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Marjorie Jackson

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That too—the Lithgow Flash. It is also the home of a small arms factory which made rifles over two world wars. It actually still exists and still produces certain things for the defence forces. It was the site of the first steel manufactured in Australia. The first smelting works were there because it had coal. They had to bring the iron ore there, but they had everything else. In fact, one of the more interesting things about Lithgow which very few people realise is that meat refrigeration was established there by Thomas Mort in 1875. The first Australian chilled meat from Lithgow arrived in England in 1880.

The Bathurst office will also look after Oberon. Oberon is one of the centres of the New South Wales timber industry. Early pioneers knew Oberon as Bullock Flat. Permanent settlement occurred as early as 1839, but in 1863 the name was changed to Oberon. (Time expired)