Some may wonder why the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner has continued to push the Animal Justice Party (AJP) on whether it deliberately chose the June long weekend as its preferred date to hold a five-year event from 2018.
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Was it in an effort to dislodge HuntFest?
We asked in February whether the party had submitted the bid as a tactic against the group that has held HuntFest at the Narooma site since 2013.
We believe the party has played semantics in its response and it has made us a little stubborn.
The Bay Post/Moruya Examiner has not taken a side on this issue – yet some elements of either side have, for years, assumed we have.
Some – but not all – supporters of both sides, when a letter to the editor has not been published or been delayed – or, heaven forbid, lost in the large digital pile of letters that routinely arrive – have leaped to assume conspiracy.
It has become a standing joke in this office.
We have been the object of suspicious and sometimes downright angry phone calls from supporters of either side.
Others – from either side – have been perfectly polite and understanding to deal with.
It is our experience that on any issue, there is a slim margin of people on either side who cannot see the wood for the trees.
The HuntFest issue has been no exception.
Why have we pushed AJP on their choice of date and venue? Yes, there are bigger issues in the world, but the whiff that someone is dodging a question with semantics gets a journalist’s goat.
The AJP has taken issue with us recently as we have pushed on their tactics.
Yet, one suspects if we were pushing a political opponent who had indulged in semantics in the same way we would be applauded.
The average reader, we believe, would have also wondered if HuntFest’s presence had anything to do with the choice of date and venue – and been dubious of an answer to the contrary.
HuntFest has been held since 2013 at the site on that weekend, has two more years to run on its licence and has been vocal about its wish, against loud condemnation, to continue to hold such a festival.
Kerrie O’Connor