Council expands ceremonies to handle high demand from new Australian citizens

Lake Macquarie City Council will expand its citizenship ceremonies to cater for a 169 per cent increase in new Australians calling the region home over the past two years.

On September 18 Lake Macquarie mayor Adam Shultz will host the council's first citizenship ceremony at Belmont 16s.

The smaller council-owned Rathmines Theatre was previously used for citizenship ceremonies.

"The Belmont 16s auditorium has a capacity to hold 550 attendees," a council spokesperson said.

Nigerian-born Samson OReleoluwa Shobowale and his wife Oluwatosin Elizabeth and their children Inioluwa Mitchelle, Erioluwa Mercy and Ewaoluwg Mable became Australian citizens in 2024. Picture by Jonathan Carroll

"In practical terms, this allows for up to 250 conferees (people becoming citizens), their guests and other attendees.

"We have invited 212 conferees to attend the September ceremony. Rathmines Theatre has a capacity to hold 200 people, which only allowed for about 100 conferees in each ceremony."

In the 2024-25 financial year, Lake Macquarie welcomed 372 new Australian citizens.

That rose to 850 new citizens in 2025-26, and the council is forecast to reach 1000 in 2026-27.

In October last year the Newcastle Herald reported that the council held three ceremonies at Rathmines Theatre to cater for a record 281 people from 47 different countries who pledged their allegiance to Australia.

Rathmines Theatre is too small to cater for the growing number of new Australian citizens. Picture by Jonathan Carroll

A spokesperson for the council said a second citizenship ceremony was scheduled for November 27 at Belmont 16s.

"A post-event assessment of the two ceremonies will help determine whether future citizenship ceremonies will continue to be held at Belmont 16s or whether they will return to Rathmines Theatre," the spokesperson said.

"A citizenship ceremony has already been planned at Rathmines Theatre on Australia Day in January 2027.

"Following the January ceremony, we are yet to determine dates for citizenship ceremonies in 2027, as these dates are scheduled in consideration of the parliamentary sitting dates."

Goma Budhathoki, Saroj Pandey, Nirmala Pandey and Nyra Pandey from Nepal became Australian citizens last year. Picture by Jonathan Carroll

According to the council's Multicultural Lake Mac Plan 2025-29, there were 1800 people who gained Australian citizenship in Lake Macquarie between 2019 and 2024, making it the third most popular new home in regional NSW behind Wollongong and Newcastle.

The top five countries represented in ceremonies were South Africa, the UK, the Philippines, New Zealand and India.

About 31,000 or 15 per cent of Lake Macquarie residents were born overseas.