Personally I think Australia Day is one of the best public holidays.

Dubbo Regional Council’s staff put a lot of effort into making our celebrations a great event for everyone. It is one of our key events. From our Australia Day awards, to the citizenship ceremony and the address from our local ambassador, it makes for an amazing occasion.

One of the things I like most about the day is the chance to recognize some very deserving citizens. There are so many people in our community who do incredible things but don’t seek recognition for them.

Thanks to nominations from the community, these people have come to light and will join an extensive list of prestigious recipients from previous years.

The awards that will be presented on Saturday include Citizen of the Year, Young Citizen of the Year, Cultural Person of the Year, Sportsperson of the Year, Young Sportsperson of the Year and the award for Services to Sport. In addition, we also take the opportunity to welcome Australia’s newest citizens. Dubbo is a very welcoming, multicultural society and we are lucky to always have plenty of people who decide to become Australian citizens here.

Saturday Citizenship ceremony will be one of the largest in recent time, with 35 people due to take the pledge. It is always special to welcome those new citizens but Australia Day seems like a great day for it to happen. Another highlight of every year’s celebrations is the speech from the Australia Day ambassador. This year, Dubbo’s ambassador is Olympic gold medalist Debbie Watson. Debbie was one of Australia’s greatest ever water polo players, representing Australia for close to two decades and finishing her career with a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

She helped Australia to become one of the leading water polo nations and captained the team during the early-90s until her retirement in 1995. However, Debbie’s commitment to the sport didn’t end there. She continued to push the sport and lobbied for it to become part of the Olympics.

That push was successful, with water polo chosen to be part of the Sydney games. That was enough to lure Debbie of retirement and achieve the fairytale finish of helping Australia to a gold medal.

I know how much work goes on behind the scenes from staff to make Australia Day a success, especially now that council looks after the two events in Dubbo and Wellington and I thank the staff for that.

One aspect of Australia Day that I don’t like is the recent controversy that has been stirred up by a small group of people. The date of January 26 for our national day has become a political argument and I can’t stress how strongly I oppose any suggestions of a date change.

I would urge everyone to show their support for Australia Day, and for a unified community, by coming along to Australia Day celebrations at Victoria Park on Saturday, starting at 7.30am with a free barbecue breakfast.

The official ceremony starts at 8.15am with entertainment commencing at the end of the official proceedings. I look forward to seeing everyone there.