What is the Australian Bureau of Statistics thinking with a plan to strip the word town from places with under 200 residents?

You can almost hear the sound of the sabre rattling in all these towns under threat from this grand idea. There’s one common trait found in everyone born in the bush... parochialism.

Sure people might openly put their town down, hey, if you are born there then that’s your given right. It’s a very different matter when an outsider takes that road though. 

People get very emotional very quickly when their town is threatened and they will defend it valiantly... something the ABS is more than likely going to find out in the days and weeks ahead.

This is Australia... a town is called a town. Village, hamlet, borough or small town are some of the suggested titles to replace town.

Villages are found in England or Africa. 

Hamlet... has and will always be known as a famous work by William Shakespeare, not a place where people live.

Borough... we already have those as in the Borough of Eaglehawk.

Small town... are you kidding?

Town isn’t just a word, it actually means something. A town is a place where people belong.

A town isn’t judged on size but more the character, people and personalities and the long histories built through the years which gel to create an identity.

Should the ABS get this concept up, will people take it seriously anyway?

Almost certainly everyone will go on calling their town a town, no matter what some bureaucrat thinks it should be titled. What a waste of time and effort.

Surely there’s more important issues to concentrate on.?