Up until about 10 years ago Beechworth proudly celebrated its heritage from the gold rush era onward. In addition to large events such as the Golden Horseshoes Festival and the Celtic Festival there were many small events including the Ned Kelly Weekend, Railway Weekend, Motorcycle Show, antique fairs and concerts (to name but a few) which brought a steady stream of visitors to town throughout the year.

Beechworth was noted for its vibrant, thriving retail and accommodation sectors. Its heritage is what distinguished Beechworth from other towns. It was indeed "Victoria's Best Preserved Gold Town" as was proudly displayed on its entrance signs.

These events were run by enthusiastic citizens with little or no support from Indigo Shire Council which was at best ambivalent and at worst antagonistic creating unnecessary hurdles and red tape.

Things began to change about a decade or so ago when politicians, bureaucrats and tourism consultants decided that Beechworth's heritage was not politically correct and not trendy enough.

The "new economy" was to be based on cycling and rail trails. More than a million dollars was spent on this. Indigo Shire was going to be flooded with tens of thousands of free-spending cyclists. Guess what? It never happened and is unlikely to ever happen.

The legacy (excuse the pun) of all this denigration of our heritage is Beechworth's empty shops, closed accommodation houses and run-down heritage buildings.

This decline started long before this year's bushfires and coronavirus pandemic. Beechworth has been reduced to a mere # on its entrance signs. Now Indigo Shire Council is to spend yet another million dollars or so on turning the Heritage Precinct into some sort of hi-tech Disneyland. It seems that genuine heritage is just not good enough.

I imagine that this "state-of-the-art visitor experience" will attract several highly paid consultants. The good citizens of Indigo Shire may wish to look up the word "carpetbagger" which came into use at the end of the American Civil War in 1865.

I wonder do any of our legislators remember or even know that prior to WWII, Australia was selling Pig Iron to Japan and our Prime Minister was known as "Pig Iron Bob"?

At that time, I was attending Albury North Infants School, but I remember. Later still, people were arguing that our pig iron must have been used to build Japanese bombers. I was too young to know what to believe then, but I wonder now, should Australia be ditching trade with Communist China and looking elsewhere for trade partners?

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