On Thursday, the 9th of December 1971, I appeared before Reserve Magistrate David Bruce Moorhouse in the old plantation house at Arawa on Bougainville Island in the then Territory of Papua New Guinea, to swear allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, and to observe faithfully the laws of Australia and fulfil my duties as an Australian citizen.
Today, on the Queen's official birthday (she was actually born on 21 April 1926), almost fifty years later, after having paid many hundreds of thousands of dollars in income tax to the Australian Government, having incurred no more than a few speeding fines and parking infringement notices against my name, and never having asked for a single cent in Government assistance and even now in retirement living off my own investments and savings, I like to think that I have kept my end of the bargain and that the Australian Government got themselves a good deal in 1965 when they subsidised my fare out to this wonderful country.
I am proud to call myself an Australian and to call Australia my home, and to do so not through an accident of birth but because of my own deliberate decision and years of hard work!
Happy Birthday, Your Majesty! I presume the notification of my being included in this year's Queen's birthday honours list has been held up. Should I check my mailbox or the bottom of my corn flakes packet?
