Australian Citizenship Day brought 97 strangers into The Regent Theatre in Richmond on Thursday, 17 September 2026, and sent them out the doors as Australians. They’d arrived from 30 different countries. They left holding the same three things: a certificate, a coin, and a small native plant still in its pot.
There’s something almost domestic about that last gift. Officials filled the stage for the occasion — Mayor Mary Lyons-Buckett, Superintendent Nadine Roberts from Hawkesbury Police, Warrant Officer Roy Naden of RAAF Base Richmond, and Council General Manager Will Barton — but it was the plant, grown in Council’s community nursery, that turned a civic ceremony into something that felt more like a housewarming. Put something in the ground here, the gesture seemed to say, and see what grows.
The Mayor’s remarks leaned into that idea of belonging by choice as much as birth. She told the new citizens that Australia welcomes anyone willing to pledge allegiance and embrace its shared values — and that the distinction between citizens born here and citizens who chose to come doesn’t matter much once the pledge is made. She wasn’t shy about calling the day worth celebrating.
Mr Barton picked up a similar thread, pointing to the room full of different backgrounds as proof of what keeps the country interesting. He talked about the experiences, perspectives, skills and stories the group carried with them, and said that mix made both Australia and the Hawkesbury worth living in.
By the time the ceremony wound down, the certificates were tucked away and the coins pocketed. The plants, presumably, went home to windowsills and backyards across the Hawkesbury — a small, growing marker of a day 97 people will likely remember as the one they became Australian.