Angela Budden: Wow! A giant abacus right outside the accountant's office. How apt!

Alicia Males: This is a great thing for the town, people have gone above and beyond for this town and I bet the people commenting negative things have never put their hands up to improve Taree for the future. It is absolutely disgusting that people are running this down when generous people have spent their own money and time putting this together just to have people start harping on about the local roads. If you actually read the plaque on the sculpture you would know the council didn't pay for it at all and it was an extremely generous donation.

Ian Harris: So Taree gets an abacus. Something as far behind the times as the town....

Carissa Black: The sculpture has turned out to be a very pleasing result for Lee and GPB Partners who put a lot of effort into giving something back to the community. If you had seen the hours and thoughts that went into it maybe you could all appreciate it a little more. It's something for the town to be proud of. I thought our biggest challenge would be protecting it from vandals not members of the community criticising something so positive. Go and have a look for yourselves and come back with something nice to say.

Dean Hammond: OK before we all go whinging about wasting the taxpayers money, abusing council and so on, maybe take the time to read the plaque that's attached to the fixture and you will see that it has been donated by a business member of the community at absolutely no cost to council or the rate payer. Just a pity we didn't have a few more people of this calibre willing to do something to help the town move forward.

Adam Skinner: There is nothing wrong with making Taree's main street look more appealing. I like it and I'm very pleased local businesses are trying to add something to the town. Stop the hate. We all know there is much to do. But adding some art to the town is a positive step to making it more interesting.

Belinda Crossingham: The negativity of Taree and the Manning Valley is most of our problem. Without getting people to come and live in our area we won't get the funding we need to fix the problems we have. The stats show that we have as many people leaving our amazing valley as we do coming to live here. This does NOT help our local, state or federal government funding when it is based on these statistics. We NEED visitors and we NEED those visitors to love our Valley as much as we do and to relocate here. Small steps lead to big things and changing the view of our residents in order to change the valley is the first step. Well done Graham Brown and Lee in having the initiative to have a go amongst such negativity, I love the abacus and it looks amazing.

Luke Anderson: Great job to all involved, it's great to see local business looking after their community, although I do ponder, what will people remember more about their trip to Taree, a sculpture down the main street, or the poor state of our roads as they drive in and around our town? This is where practicality of community projects plays a role, did we need a sculpture or could that business contribution have a better focus? Either way, the ball has starting rolling in the right direction, if every business and more so every person in this town contributed even a little, this would be one great place to live.

James de Berg: For those of you Naysayers (look it up) there is a bus leaving for any other place you like in Australia at 4pm this afternoon (you could probably get a free one way ticket from the council) - please feel free to be on it. This town needs visionaries (again look it up) who will at least make an effort. Those of you who are supporting this and other initiatives please stay, please help, please rebuild this town!

Related story: Making art count in Taree.