The Australia Day Ambassador for Braidwood is John Stanley, Radio Presenter with Radio 2UE Sydney. John has been in radio for more than 30 years, first as a political reporter and for the past 20 years as a program presenter. Born and raised in Sydney, he started his radio career in Moree, Bega and Nowra before returning to Sydney as a journalist with Radio 2SM. He then worked with Laurie Oakes in Canberra, which fired his passion for political journalism. After covering the 1980 election, it was back to Sydney and in 1982, he was appointed as State Political Correspondent for news/talk station 2GB, where he provided hour by hour coverage of the political scandals of the early 1980s.

In 1985, John returned to Canberra as National Political Correspondent for the Macquarie Radio network, providing daily reports and commentary for the major talk shows in all capital cities. In 1990, John took over the Drive Time program and then switched to afternoons for the next decade, returning to the Drive Time of 3pm to 6pm.

Woolworths is once again the major sponsor for Australia Day and the event program will feature the presentation of civic awards. There are three categories of awards, being the Citizen of the Year, the Young Citizen of the Year and the Community Event of the Year.

Australia Day gives us all the opportunity to acknowledge those who have made outstanding contributions to our local community in the past twelve months and more. Why not come along and join in the celebrations on our national day.

Events will also be held in Captains Flat starting at 10am in the Community Hall (Foxlow St), and in Bungendore starting at 2pm at the Council Chambers (10 Majara Street).

For Captains Flat and Bungendore, our 2008 Ambassador is blind swimmer James Pittar. James has represented Australia in swimming overseas with an impressive record. James is the first blind swimmer to complete endurance events ranging from 13km up to 22km in Ireland, Alaska, California, Thailand, Turkey, South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand, Italy and the Straits of Gibraltar.