On Tuesday, the threat of an extraordinary meeting and further consultation with his fellow councillors saw mayor Graeme Hanger bow to pressure to change the date of the ceremony. 

READ MORE: Citizenship ceremony to be held on Australia Day

A short time after the decision was made, the Australia Day committee came together for a scheduled meeting to finalise the plans for January 26. 

Councillor Alex Christian is part of the committee and said that other committee members were happy to see the ceremony back on the traditional day. 

Further to that, he said there was “a lot of embarrassment around the room” about how everything had unfolded in recent days. 

“I spoke to all of the civilians on this committee and not one of them was happy that the citizenship ceremony was going to be held on the day before Australia Day,” he said. 

After confirmation came that the date would be changed, a lot of talk at the meeting was about the events that would be occurring on Australia Day.

Cr Christian also restated his commitment to growing Australia Day activities in the future, to make them more family-friendly and draw bigger crowds. 

Naturally, he has a few thoughts about how that can be done. 

“I’d like to see [the citizenship ceremony] go back to Machattie Park or even have some stalls along Kings Parade,” Cr Christian said.

“I’d like to see it more family-friendly, some emergency services’ vehicles and face painting, things like that.” 

While future events programs aren’t certain, he was confident that there would be no confusion about what date the citizenship ceremony would be held on. 

“If anybody ever comes forward and offers a different date for the citizenship ceremony, they need to remove themselves from the Australia Day committee. It’s just that simple,” Cr Christian said.