Australia Day 2023 in the Snowy Valleys
Published on 17 January 2023
Australia Day preparations are underway throughout the Snowy Valleys, with events for the whole family to enjoy.
Snowy Valleys Council will host two events in celebration of Australia Day this year, a special pre-Australia Day Awards Dinner, and an early morning Australia Day citizenship ceremony.
The Snowy Valleys Australia Day citizenship ceremony will be held in Tumut’s Stockwell Gardens starting at 8 am on Thursday, January 26 with the Tumut Rotary Club supplying a free BBQ breakfast.
The official program will begin at 9 am including an address from the Snowy Valleys Australia Day Ambassador, Bruce Elder, and a Citizenship Ceremony welcoming 35 new Australian Citizens to the community.
Ten families and ten individuals from 12 different birth countries will take the pledge to become Australian citizens on January 26 at the Tumut ceremony.
Their countries of origin include Brazil, India, the Philippines, South Africa, Britain, Germany, Canada, Zimbabwe, Japan, Pakistan, Egypt, and the Solomon Islands.
On the evening of Wednesday, the 25th of January, Council will also host a special Australia Day Awards Dinner at the Batlow Literary Institute made possible by funding from the National Australia Day Council’s Australia Day 2023 grants program.
The Snowy Valleys Australia Day Awards will be presented at the dinner ceremony where invited nominees and nominators will be joined by Councillors and dignitaries.
Council received 21 nominations across four categories for this year’s awards: Local Citizen of the Year, Service to Community, Sportsperson of the Year, and Sports Team of the Year.
Community groups will also host local Australia Day events on the 26th of January.
- Batlow: Memorial Park from 9 am. Presented by Rotary Club of Batlow.
Breakfast in the Park, entertainment, and local awards ceremony.
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Tumbarumba: Tumbarumba Creekscape from 10:30am. Presented by Rotary Club of Tumbarumba. Rotary BBQ, entertainment, and local awards ceremony.
- Adelong: A morning awards ceremony will be held at the Adelong S&C Club with free morning tea, hosted by the Adelong Progress Association.
- Talbingo: Talbingo residents and visitors are invited to Miles Franklin Park for a barbeque dinner at 5pm. Official proceedings will commence at 6pm.
For more information on these events please contact the local event organisers.
Australia Day Ambassador
This year, the 2023 Australia Day Ambassador for the Snowy Valleys Region is Mr. Bruce Elder, Writer and Music Journalist.
Bruce Elder has been involved in the writing over 60 books and he has worked as a print and radio journalist in both London and Sydney.
He is an award-winning journalist (Geraldine Pascall Prize for Critical Writing - 1996) who worked as both a freelance and full-time employee of the Sydney Morning Herald for 25 years. He also worked for the ABC as a regular contributor from 1977-2016 – from London correspondent for Double Jay to being a regular on Tony Delroy’s Nightlife program.
In 1988 he wrote a study of the massacres and maltreatment of Australian Aborigines titled Blood on the Wattle which was praised at the time as ‘arguably the best book ever written about Aborigines by a white writer.’ It has remained in print since 1988 and is now in its Third Edition. It has been reprinted ten times. In a Sydney Morning Herald-The Age survey in 2000, it was nominated as one of the ten most influential works of non-fiction published in Australia in the twentieth century.
Currently, he is working on his own website Aussie Towns (www.aussietowns.com.au). It will contain information on 1350 towns around Australia. It is currently 1.2 million words long and will be over 2 million when completed.
For 25 years Elder was the Australian editor of Trivial Pursuit.
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