"Phantom" Joins the Australian Family on Australia Day
Media Release - DPS 2/96
Phantom of the Opera star Robin Guest and Gangajang lead singer Mark Callaghan are two celebrities taking out Australian Citizenship during the first-ever Citizenship Week celebrations in New South Wales.
They join more than 3,000 new citizens who will be welcomed to the Australian family at 60 ceremonies across NSW on Australia Day.
Robin Guest will become a citizen at Baulkham Hill Council's Australia Day citizenship ceremony at the start of Citizenship Week. Mark Callaghan will be joining the Australian family on 3 February at the Australian Maritime Museum during a ceremony to mark the last day of Citizenship Week.
The latter event is jointly hosted by the Australian Maritime Museum and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.
Citizenship Week in NSW will be formally launched by Mary Easson, M.P., Federal Member for Lowe, on behalf of the Minister for Immigration & Ethnic Affairs, Senator Nick Bolkus, at the Australia Day Council citizenship ceremony at Sydney's Hyde Park.
World renowned singer and ARIA award winner Diesel, who recently became a citizen, has been appointed by the Minister as NSW and national Citizenship Week Ambassador.
Diesel will appear at the Australia Day concert, co-sponsored by the Department and Telstra, at the Domain. During Citizenship Week, he will work with "welcome teams" which have already appeared at major shopping malls in Sydney and Wollongong, raising awareness of Australian Citizenship and encouraging eligible persons to apply for citizenship.
A special task force of community advocates has written newspaper articles, broadcast talks and informed individuals and groups of the benefits of Australian Citizenship.
Ethnic communities will sponsor several ceremonies at which some 500 people in Sydney alone are expected to take out Australian Citizenship.
NSW schools essay and poster competition winners, Mark Dasco of Patrician Brothers Secondary School, Quakers Hill, and Yang Xu of Chatswood Primary School, will be joining other State and Territory winners at the national awards presentation by the Prime Minister in Canberra on 30 January.
Citizenship week activities were designed to encourage all Australians to think about Australian Citizenship, to consider the benefits of being an Australian citizen and to encourage people who are not currently citizens to "join our family".
The week is one of many initiatives of a four-year program of events announced by the Minister in response to the recommendations of a joint parliamentary committee.
Sydney, 16 January 1996
Media contact: Leila Stiernborg, tel: (02) 219 7903