The Ingleburn Australia Day festivities are always a community effort and today was no different. RILEY MUNRO reports:
The Country Women’s Association provided refreshments and handed out miniature Australian flags, while members of the Glenfield Scout unit helped distribute a native plant to each new citizen.
The Macarthur Country Music Association put on a live performance in Hallinan Park after the citizenship ceremony, while the Ingleburn Lions Club manned the free barbecue.
Last but not least, St John’s Ambulance volunteers were on hand to watch over those enjoying the festivities.
The day’s first citizenship ceremony and the presentation of local Australia Day honours took place as usual at Koshigaya Park from 8am this morning.
Once this was completed the caravan moved on to the Greg Percival Community Centre in Ingleburn for a citizenship ceremony, followed by the Australia Day entertainment just a few metres nearby in Hallinan Park.
About 100 Campbelltown residents received their certificates and officially became Australian citizens at the two citizenship ceremonies.
During his speeches at both Koshigaya Park and the Greg Percival Centre, Mayor George Brticevic reflected on his Croatian heritage and how his parents became citizens back in the 1970s.
He went on to welcome the newest Australians to the “Campbelltown family”.
Cr Brticevic also shared a memory of a time where he travelled to NSW Parliament House to criticise the government after they stripped police death and disability insurance.
He said he may or may not have “yelled some things over the railing” which led to both himself, and a few others, being ejected from the House.
He then mentioned that he returned to work the very next day “and guess what? Nothing happened.”
In some other countries such action very often leads to serious consequences like imprisonment or death, he said.
Federal Member for Macarthur Dr Mike Freelander also made a brief speech in Ingleburn.
After acknowledging our Indigenous peoples and their lands, Dr Freelander said: “Today, seeing your faces and your children’s faces, the future looks very bright.”
