By Jenel Hunt
Almost 200 people gathered at the Stanthorpe Civic Centre to celebrate two important events in one at the Australia Day Civic Ceremony on Thursday, 26 January.
The venue was tastefully elegant with displays of signage, awards and gifts. The presentation gave the occasion an atmosphere of consequence and solemnity – something that had been lacking in previous years when the ceremony was staged from the bandshell at Weeroona Park.
The Mayor Vic Pennisi completed the sense of formality, wearing his mayoral chain over his suit.
Stanthorpe Town Crier Bob Townshend was dressed in his green-and-gilt finery and wielded his large town crier’s bell as he started the proceedings with a ringing endorsement. Even at the age of 80, his “Hear ye, hear ye” was loud and proud.
A number of councillors attended to help present the Australia Day awards and citizenship gifts. Local Member of Parliament James Lister was there with his family, while a member of last year’s Youth Council, James Henry, attended to deliver the youth address.
The new citizens stood to give their Oaths of Allegiance (also known as citizenship pledge), after which the invitation to recite the Australian Affirmation was taken up by the majority of the audience.
Stanthorpe had eight of the 11 people in the region who officially became Australian citizens on the day.
The award ceremony was met with everything from polite applause to cheers as the audience warmed up to a resounding crescendo when the Citizen of the Year was announced. Honoured were Kath Ives, Mick Mahoney, Fitzroy Pascoe, Thomas Petrie and Morwenna Harslett.
As Citizen of the Year for the southern region, Morwenna was invited to give a brief speech.
Guest speaker for the day was Australia Day Ambassador Leigh Skinner, who encouraged people to set goals and dream big. He recounted his own experience of waking up one morning at the age of 18 to find that his legs didn’t work. It led him to a dangerous operation after it was found he had a tumour then he went through a long period of drug and alcohol addiction. It wasn’t until the age of 40 that things changed for him.
“I started reading self-help books, then someone gave me a DVD of the ‘The Secret’ which was about projecting things for your life and being grateful for what you had. I thought it was a bit woo woo, but I decided to do it. Instead of thinking, ‘I can’t run, I can’t jump, I can’t walk up stairs’, I started being grateful for being at least able to walk around. I could have ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of my life from that operation,” he said. “I did have something to be grateful for.
“Then I got some CDs of Anthony Robbins and I started setting goals. He said to make a goal so audacious, so big, that you’dknow it worked. So I made my goal to meet the Queen.
“A couple of years later I walked into a mate’s mechanical workshop, he asked me if I’d even thought of becoming a Paralympian, and it was like he had handed me a key. Sure I’d wanted to be an athlete but my body was broken. Yet in that moment, everything changed.”
He rang the Sporting Wheelies and they suggested power lifting – where an athlete lies on a bench with legs strapped down and does a bench press. So he drove to Brisbane and talked to the national coach. By then Leigh was 44 years old and seemingly too old. But the coach wrote a special program for him and he went home and trained ‘like I was 20 years old’.
It was the start of everything for Leigh, who made it onto the Australian Paralympian Team. Since then he has held several Australian and international records both in Para-Powerlifting and also in the Able Body Bench Press. By the time he retired, he had competed in three Commonwealth Games. It wasn’t easy and he had some incredible setbacks, including the time when he had a brain bleed and broke some ribs and had to pull out of a competition. But for him one of the crowning moments of his life was when he was in Scotland in 2014.
“I was sitting in an ice bath at the time and someone said, ‘Guess who’s coming to the village?’ I got dressed and went over to the food hall and was standing there like a kid in a lolly shop, because yes, I got to see the Queen in person. And when I thought back, I remembered that had been one of my goals years before.”
After he returned to Australia he broke two world records in able-bodied competition.
He said a defining moment in his personal life was at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018 when his elderly parents were able to see him in person, competing on his home turf.
“So yes, I’m grateful every day. And that’s what we all need to be. Grateful and strong.”
