THE Coalition will force every Australian council to hold a citizenship ceremony on Australia Day, a move that has \u201cdelighted\u201d Liberal Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson but has been branded as \u201cheavyhanded\u201d by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA).<\/p>\n
The change, announced on Sunday, is part of an update to the Australian Citizenship Ceremonies Code.<\/p>\n
Councils must now also hold a second citizenship ceremony on Australian Citizenship Day (September 17), but will be able to continue to hold further ceremonies on other days throughout the year.<\/p>\n
For the first time, the ceremonies will also have a \u201crecommended dress standard\u201d, \u201cgiven the significance and formality of the event\u201d.<\/p>\n
The new legislation follows two Melbourne councils deciding not to reference Australia Day in its celebrations on January 26 and the Coalition subsequently removing the right for those two councils to hold citizenship ceremonies.<\/p>\n
Ms Henderson said the Coalition believed \u201cthere should be greater respect for our national day of celebration\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am delighted that our government is taking very strong action to ensure that all councils are required to conduct citizenship ceremonies on January 26, which prevents rogue councils from undermining Australia Day celebrations.\u201d<\/p>\n
ALGA president David O\u2019Loughlin said there had been \u201czero consultation\u201d about the change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure if they had consulted, they\u2019d find that about 25 per cent of councils hold it on a different day for very sensible reasons \u2013 it\u2019s too hot on the day so they hold it the evening before, it\u2019s a public holiday so the pay rates make it not very sensible if no-one\u2019s going to turn up, or they have it the week before so that everyone on Australia Day is already an Australian citizen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis smacks of something that is very heavyhanded to deal with a problem that is not related to citizenship, so we\u2019re very surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Coalition will force every Australian council to hold a citizenship ceremony on Australia Day, a move that has \u201cdelighted\u201d Liberal Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson but has been branded as \u201cheavyhanded\u201d by the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA). The change, announced on Sunday, is part of an update to the Australian Citizenship Ceremonies Code. Councils […]<\/p>\n