Citizenship shambles at Noosa Australia Day ceremony – it had nothing to do with the rain

Posted by Jim McDonald on January 26, 2012

I have just returned from the Noosa Australia Day Citizenship ceremony. I have mentioned elsewhere that I regard these ceremonies as one of the most solemn and important secular ceremonies in our country. I stayed until the end of the formal “ceremony” and left in disgust.

You’d think, that if citizenship and welcoming migrants as fellow Australians were important, some thought would be put into ensuring their formal induction is a memorable day for those people who have come to our country, and decided to adopt the responsibilities of full citizenship.

What the Sunshine Coast Regional Council dished up was an appalling, ocker display that appeared to have been put together in the most diffident fashion. Mayor, Bob Abbott, for the most part was the only speaker to give the ceremony some gravitas. Bob couldn’t help himself and finishing off with a loud “Aussie, Aussie Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” at the end of the formal ceremony was a banal end to his barely audible reading of the Oath and Affirmation.

They were the only clear words we heard from Bob Abbott. He spoke quietly into an inadequate PA system and could not be heard by most of the audience. A Council, which will spend $80,000 on electrical equipment for a commercial food and wine festival in Noosa, could not even be bothered installing a professional PA system.

Councillor Russell Green gave a blokey introduction to the MC whose only qualifications for the job seemed to be inappropriate blokey in-jokes [Cr Green really hit the mark] and the fact that he’d been the presenter for some travel program. Enunciation was not one of his qualities and I wonder what those new citizens for whom English is a second language made of it. At the end of what should have been an important and significant highlight of the morning he engaged in banter about football and cricket.

I didn’t stay to hear any of the other speakers so I didn’t get to hear local member Glen Elmes who looked not the least embarrassed by the nonsense and I wondered whether a woman’s voice would be heard on stage before the pipe band arrived.

This appalling clique that was onstage throughout has got to go!

Jim McDonald
Greens Candidate, Noosa
Australia Day