AustLit

'I'd always been ambivalent about the celebration of Australia Day. Being of the inner-city, bleeding-heart leftie brigade, for me it conjured images of flag tattoos, Kochie in a Southern Cross barbecue apron and Cronulla on a bad day. But then I was asked to be an Australia Day Ambassador, a program run in New South Wales to send people with some sort of public profile out into the community to help officiate at regional celebrations and give a speech to the new citizens. I have no idea why they picked me - when I arrived in Speers Point it was immediately apparent that no-one had a clue who I was. The local mayor and I did a circuit of the park, and my only consolation was that even fewer people knew who he was.' (Author's abstract)