Saturday’s ceremony at CWA Park was a quick affair with Coleambally Men’s Shed Treasurer Peter Van Hees taking the role of master of ceremonies.

During the ceremony Mr Van Hees received assistance from Darlington Point Public School captains Brock Coe and Mahalia McLean for the raising of the flags.

Letting his disappointment at the lack of nominations be known during a speech Mr Van Hees promoted the achievements of NSW Australian of the year nominee Kurt Fearnly.

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Mr Fearnly was born with the disorder sacral agenesis which prevented the fetal development of his lower spine and is three time Paralympic Games gold medalist and two time Commonwealth Games gold medalist.

“In our community there are many people in our community who do small things, we congratulate ourselves this year on the Burrumbuttock Hay Run which left here on Thursday, there was a lot of people involved in that in helping people who are complete strangers,” Mr Vanhees said. 

Resident Caseyn Thomas said she was very surprised the Point didn’t have any nominations and that the nomination process was not very well advertised.

“I was going to nominate the under 11 boys group 20 rugby league team for making it to the grand final, but because my partner coaches I didn’t want to be the one to nominate,” Ms Thomas said. 

Mrs Thomas said she did eventually find the nomination documents online but couldn’t print them out and bring them to council.

Mayor Ruth McCrae said council’s advertising process this year was the same as it has been the years prior.

“We need to engage our community to step up and recognize some of our achievers,” Councillor McRae said.  

“There are good people in our community doing lots of work and Australia Day is really important to us, it’s not about creating good stories it’s about recognizing.”

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