Community
31 January, 2025
Nathan McKane, Citizen of the Year
POSSIBLY Warrnambool’s largest ever Citizenship Ceremony was held last Thursday night, with 49 people taking the pledge and officially becoming Australian citizens.
Originally from the Philippines, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Canada and Nepal, they were welcomed into the common bond of Citizenship by Mayor Ben Blain.
The evening also saw the 2025 Citizen of the Year Award recipients officially recognised.
Mike Toone won the Local Achiever Award, the Warrnambool Community Garden Open Day is the Community Event of the Year, Sharna Rogers is the Young Citizen of the Year and Nathan McKane is the Citizen of the Year.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr McKane said that he was very honoured to receive the award.
“When you look around our community, even in this room there are people doing great stuff in our community, so to be singled out is quite an honour,” he said.
“A lot of this (pride) comes from knowing that it takes that one person to create some empowerment, to lead some peers and bring some peers along and create conversations around suicide prevention and mental health awareness.
“Companies like R U OK? put on a lot of campaigns and challenges that make it accessible to everyday citizens to jump onboard.
“I want this award to feel reflective of a whole lot of people, I may know them, I may not, but you can see by the expression in their eyes that this means something.
“I’m not immune to mental health issues. We all go through hard times in life.
“I bumped into someone last night at the supermarket and you know what, our lives are better when our mates are in it.”
Warrnambool mayor Cr Ben Blain congratulated the award winners and the new citizens.
“This is one of my favourite events of the year,” he said.
“Warrnambool is a pretty great place to live… and it’s our people who make our city the welcoming, supporting and fun place that it is.”
