Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Each year it is a great privilege and honour for me to be given the opportunity to officiate at the Australia Day ceremony at Sussex Inlet. The conferring of citizenship upon people can be a tremendously gratifying experience as the joy in the individual who becomes an Australian feeds into your own soul. It is an emotional moment, but the real depth of feeling did not become apparent to me until I read the following letter from one of our newest Australians, Gillian Robinson of Sussex Inlet. With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to share her letter with the House. Gillian writes:

I thought you might like to read of my journey towards the Australian Citizenship which I was proud to receive on Australia Day at the Sussex Inlet Lions Club Park.

It is a story covering a 70 year period!

I was born in Uganda in 1933 of British Colonial Civil Servant parents, finally leaving to return to Britain at the end of WW2.

In Uganda, when I was 7 years old, my father read to my brother and myself, as a bedtime story, a book he had been awarded in 1914, at the age of 11, in Blackheath, England as a school Arithmetic prize.

That book, which I now own, was ‘Timothy in Bushland’ by Mary Grant Bruce, published in 1912 as one of a number of Ward Lock & Co’s “Gift Books, Prizes and Rewards”.

I was enthralled by the story and made up my young mind that I would one day find my way to Australia.

The years passed and I traveled and lived in many countries until at last in 1989 my daughter came to Australia as a back-packer.

I saved up all my annual leave and ‘time-in-lieu’ from work and finally flew to Australia to spend six weeks at Christmas and the New Year with her.

It was, as I thought, the only opportunity I would ever have to see the country which had inspired my childhood dream and it did not disappoint!

I was photographed on the Opera House steps and with the Bridge as a background, spent my 56th birthday in Grafton Botanic Gardens, flew to Uluru and Katajuta, traveled by bus all up the northern NSW and Queensland Coast, flew by amphibious plane out to the Barrier Reef, sailed on “Gretel”, the America’s Cup challenger and on “Apollo” a Sydney to Hobart contender and kept a detailed journal of this magnificent adventure!

More years passed, circumstances changed and after previously spending two years on an ‘exchange’ visit, in 1999 my daughter together with her husband and three young children emigrated from the UK to Australia to live in Nowra.

I visited as a tourist time and time again. Finally, with the encouragement of my son and daughter, I decided to try to emigrate in the ‘aged parent’category and on being accepted, waited on my Bridging Visa for 7 years, before being given my Permanent Residency on 2nd July 2008.

The culmination of this life time’s “dream of Australia” was the ceremony at Sussex Inlet on Australia Day, 26th January 2011, when I was at last granted my Australian Citizenship, thus proving that you should never give up on a dream, even a dream of 70 years duration!

My thanks are due to my son and his wife and to my daughter and her husband for their encouragement in my adventure towards my dream.

To Mr and Mrs Ross Westley of Sussex Inlet Lions Club, to Joanna Gash MP who awarded me my Citizenship, to Shelley Hancock MP, the Lions Club dignitaries and members and to all the other new Citizens, all of whom contributed to the success of a very special day.

With sincere thanks - Gillian Robinson.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will let those words speak for themselves.