The Making of Australians

On Australia Day I was delighted to attend my second Citizenship Ceremony where immigrants to Australia become Australian citizens.

The first was at Tennant Creek in the early 60s when two of my work mates became Australian citizens. Both were from Europe; Austria, I think and it was simply a matter of attending the Tennant Creek Court House where the Clerk of the Court handed each a Certificate of Naturalisation, welcomed them to our mob and shook their hands.

It was a low key affair that took 10 minutes; no speeches, no celebratory drinks or any fanfare, although I do recall the two who were naturalised and a large number of their friends did migrate to the Tennant Creek Memorial Club where they drank and made merry until the early hours of the morning.

Australia Day 2015 was a much nicer affair. Fifty-three people accepted the gift of Australian Citizenship and all that entails. Among them were friends of our family, Vivek and Tina and their two children Shaun and Reanne whom you can see in the photo above. 

The family is of Indian origin from Mumbai, however, they lived for many years in Kuwait before immigrating to Australia.

At the ceremony, which was planned, organised and executed by the Kenmore Rotary Club, a welcoming speech was given by a local government member, new citizens read one of two pledges, the first for those who believe in God and the second a secular pledge with almost identical wording. 

Our newest citizens were then called to the stage where they were handed their Certificates of Citizenship, congratulated and photographed with the Australian, Queensland and City of Brisbane flags in the background.

Our friend Tina presented an excellent speech of thanks on behalf of the new Australians that elicited a warm and loud round of applause from the crowd of a hundred or more people.

A female singer sang the Australian Song, the chorus of which is “I am, you are, we are Australian” and of course at one stage we sang our beautiful National Anthem, Advance Australia Fair.

Both new and old Australians were invited to recite a general pledge of elegiance to Australia which we did enthusiastically.

Light refreshments followed as people milled about having additional photographs taken, congratulating our newest citizens and enjoying the special moment in the lives of those for whom the ceremony was held.

While I don’t know any of the other 49 people whose citizenship was confirmed, I believe my friends are an example of the kind of immigrants Australia needs and can benefit from. They work, pay taxes, comply with Australian laws and support our values which are very similar to those of India. It’s certainly a matter of India’s loss and our gain, however, India with its larger population probably hardly notices they aren’t there.

Numbers of Australians, even some who were immigrants from Italy and Greece or the rest of Europe post-WWII are against immigration and would like to see it stopped. Most of us realise the benefits that come from increasing our population with intelligent, educated, hard-working people who share our values and principles.

It’s probably true to say that Australia needs immigrants more than the immigrants need Australia.

We were only 26 days into our new year and already this was a great start to what we hope will be a wonderful year ... The Making of Australians.

Robin

Australia Day 2012

Tomorrow is Australia Day, the day in 1788 when the British Navy fleet of 11 ships landed in what is now called Botany Bay near Sydney, New South Wales.

I've often tried to imagine what it must have felt like to have been sent from your homeland to travel for months to some part of the world about which nobody knew very much at all. If things turned bad at any part of the voyage, it wasn't as if you could jump on the next Emirates airplane and head home within hours. Many of those who arrived in Australia would never have seen their homeland again. There were no houses, no hospitals, no schools, just three million odd square miles of native scrub and of course the original inhabitants, the First Australians who had arrived from Africa thousands of years earlier.

It could have been the Japanese, Dutch, Portugese, French or perhaps a handful of other nations' people that arrived to take over Terra Australis. Whoever it was would no doubt have created the same negative impact on the native occupants, but we are indeed fortunate that our roots are British. From the "Old Country" we inherited a robust system of law, democracy and governance that has served us well for the past 200 years and will serve us well for a bit longer until it is subsumed by a foreign totalitarian regime that is working to undermine Australian values as I write. Our failing is that we are too democratic and too nice.

The British flag (Union Jack) on our flag shows our roots; the Southern Cross the star pattern visible in the Southern Hemisphere. The Federation Star, directly below the Union Jack has a point for each of our States and a point for the two Territories, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

For the first time in years we have nothing planned for tomorrow, but when we wake up we will no doubt have a breakfast of fruit juice, pikelets, golden syrup, coffee, and reflect on how very fortunate we are to have been born Australian.

Robin
 

Australia Day 2010

Australia Day this year is a relatively quiet one for our family. Christina is on afternoon shift at the hospital and I'm home alone watching tennis and doing some tasks about the house, including monitoring some turkey legs getting cooked in our slow cooker.

Shortly I'm going over to our son, Dale's place for a beer (just one, since I'm driving) and to console him a bit as his car was set ablaze by some hoons recently and is a wipe off. What pleasure do these people get destroying someone's property?

My son's not a millionaire and, although the vehicle was insured, he'll not get back in cash what the utility value of it was.

On Saturday evening we have a late Australia Day celebration with friends which should compensate for the slowness of the actual day ... today.

My father was born on Australia Day and when I was a young fellow he told me we got a public holiday to celebrate it. For an hour or two, I'm sure I believed him. He would have been 92 today had he not died too early.

As the chorus our National Anthem states, "Advance Australia Fair."

Robin

Australia Day 2009

This Australia Day we went the whole hog and had not one, but two celebratory events; first on Saturday, 24 Jan at the work premises of T&T Power Generation in the industrial area and the second, a brunch at our house in the leafy suburbs of Araluen.

Tori and Trevor, owners of T&T Power Generation provided a wonderful dinner of king prawns (shrimp for those of you from North America) followed by a barbecued steak with a variety of salads and dressings, all washed down with a variety of spirits, beer and wines.

A large number of people attended even a few kids, these ones at left being aptly outfitted and a good indicator that our traditions will be carried forward by the coming generations. I might add that the little fellow was drinking soft drink ... we want our kids to

follow our traditions, but some of them we don't want adopted too soon or too vigorously.

We took our photo record early so we could get it out of the way and focus on the real events of the evening. Here is a photo of you-know-who in our Australia Day paraphernalia ... not the sort of stuff you'd wear on any "normal" day.

A bit over the top eh?

We managed to have a wonderful evening of eating, drinking and socialising renewing friendships with a couple of people whom we had not seen for years and made a few new friends.

As has been our family tradition for as long as I can remember, we had a brunch at our house for family and a few friends.

My father's birthday was on Australia Day and he had me convinced for at least a few years that the National holiday was in honour of his birthday.

By the time I'd turned 25 I realised that he'd been pulling my leg for all those years. If he was still alive, he would have

turned 91, which is far too old for anyone, even my father.

We set up outside in our covered area which was pleasantly warm with a gentle breeze. Excellent weather for Australia Day.

Chris, the master of the kitchen, slapped together some waffles for the first course, served with boysenberries, treacle, cream, or strawberry topping, whatever one preferred.

I made a flask or two of coffee, a cooler flask of cordial, and cranked up our barbecue for the traditional sausages, bacon, eggs on toast, tomato and mushrooms. The last photo is one of our son Dale finishing off the mushrooms.

If you'd like to see more photos of our Australia Day celebrations, you can find them here

Robin and Christina