Home Spirit

 

Each year on 17 September it is Australian Citizenship Day.

Addi Road Community Organisation was honoured to welcome over 200 people to take part in their citizenship ceremony in Sydney today – as well as celebrate the 75th anniversary of the ceremony as a vital part of Australian life.

Since it began in 1949 more than 6 million people have chosen to become Australian citizens, the numbers alone a rich marker of our multicultural history as a country.

The warmth of the occasion – a sense of something that truly mattered to all who were involved –  was evident from the moment the doors of Gumbramorra Hall opened and people began filing in.

Individuals and couples, families and friends, the old and the very young, so many different nationalities and generations gathering as one for their special day.

 

The Honourable Tony Burke MP – the Minister for Home Affairs, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Cyber Security, Minister for the Arts, and Leader of the House – gave the keynote address.

MC for the occasion was Ms Sneha Chatterjee, A/g First Assistant Secretary for the Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Division and Regional Director New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory for the Department of Home Affairs.

VIP guests sharing the stage included Rosanna Barbero, the CEO for the Addison Road Community Organisation (‘Addi Road’) and Simon Chan AM, Director and Founder of Art Atrium.

Darran Williams from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council offered up an Acknowledgement of Country and a cultural performance, deep blasts of didge and clapstick tapping against the black, yellow and red painted ironwood as Williams breathed out a timeless song, putting people into another state of mind and sense of place.

 

After playing, Williams spoke with humour and educational sharpness about First Nations history, making sure everyone in the hall understood they were on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. He greeted the room with a host of different words that all meant hello to them in their homes of origin, before explaining how Aboriginal culture across the country rooted itself in “sharing and caring, in looking out for each other”.

Williams said that he wanted to translate this feeling to everyone in the hall, explaining how a community organisation like Addi Road likewise reflected this deep spirit of helping one another. This was the truth at the bottom of any real Australian identity as manifested by Aboriginal people, a lesson that everyone could learn, feel and share.

“Don’t be alone,” Williams said by way of further encouragement. “Talk to someone.” Times were difficult, hard, confusing, he knew this, we all did. But this spirit was with us if we wanted to heed it, recognise it, share in it. “We will become a strong people in this together.”

Tony Burke took the microphone next, acknowledging William’s wise words and the gift of First Nations history that Australia was blessed with. He reflected on how many occasions he had been privileged to witness both Acknowledgement and Welcome to Country greetings and what that meant each time.

 The simple word “welcome’” itself a profound message in sentiment and ceremony for what First Nations Australians offered all of us. “In time I hope we can all return the generosity,” Burke said..

He then addressed the crowd of aspiring soon-to-be Australian citizens more directly, but in the same spirit, thanking them for what they brought to the country: “your heritage, your story and your future”

Burke reflected on the nature of language itself, how so often there were words and feelings that could not find a matching word in English or vice vera. This complexity, this uniqueness was part of the gift we could share with each other – with regard to the “treasure” that is First Nations culture, “here since the first sunrise that is welcoming the rest of us”, with regard to the history and institutions that made us a nation today, and with regard to the great multicultural experience that continued to form Australia.

“Citizenship is not a blender where everyone comes out in the same puree.” Keeping one’s cultural identity and language and food and greetings all helped strengthen what we could be as we came together and shared both our uniqueness and our desire to understand and form a true community.

Burke, like Williams before him, made use of Addi Road as a community organisation “whose doors, in so many ways, are open all the time, providing a sense of welcome.”

He encouraged everyone about to go through the ceremony to exercise their rights as citizens, to vote, to engage and feel welcome and wanted in that engagement. “Most important today is the extent to which Australia is saying thank you to you, thank you for making Australia a better nation.”

It was then time to take the oath and for everyone to stand. Burke warned “my hearing isn’t great. I’ve been to a lot of rock concerts over the years so you will have to speak up loud for me.” He hardly needed to encourage. The oath was taken and citizenship rights formalised in a wide and varied group of people speaking as one.

Simon Chan AM, Director and Founder of Art Atrium then took the microphone as the day’s guest speaker, sharing his own experiences of citizenship from boyhood to now. He was pleased to note that it was not only the 75th anniversary of citizenship ceremonies in Australia, but also the day of the Chinese Moon Festival.

In good humour he welcomed everyone and said “you are now all Aussies!”

“I was born in Hong Kong. I came here as a high school student in 1971. By 1973 I was the University of Sydney studying architecture. This was the same year the Whitlam Government renounced the White Australia Policy and officially established multiculturalism as a policy.”

Food, art, performances, festivals, Chan had seen the country grow with the experience of people from different cultures and countries. Now his three children were Australian from birth, growing up an educated here before working as adults at different places around the world. He shared an anecdote of visiting his daughter in New York, his pride in her and all his children and how they all thought of themselves as Australian no matter where they were in the world. Then he spoke of his flight home from New York, a happiness in him, a kind of anticipation every time, “that I was coming home”.

Chan was not deluded about the many problems we nonetheless face. “Australia is going through a very difficult time. The whole world is. It’s a challenging period for cultural and social cohesion. But we need to all think of ourselves as part of an Australian family,” he said, echoing the sentiments of his own familial story.

“We need to work together to maintain that social cohesion. To share our common values and celebrate our diversity.”

With that and a group singalong of ‘Advance Australia Fair’ the Australian Citizenship Ceremony was officially over. Citizens took photos of themselves before the flags and pennants promoting the day, as well as with Tony Burke, Simon Chan, Darran Williams and Rosanna Barbero. Not to mention a few beside a life-size poster of King Charles. Outside as this varied group of Australian citizens left they lined up again to take away a small gift for their gardens and kitchen tables, bush tucker plants in small pots the size of their hand.