Australia Citizenship

On September 8 2005 the Australian government announced a range of immigration legilslation changes designed to further enhance its counter-terrorism laws. The proposals included a number of changes to Australia's citizenship legislation.

In summary the changes are:

The Australian citizenship residency requirement has been extended by 12 months to 3 years. This provides for security checking of citizenship applicants. They can therefore be refused on security grounds for offences committed in the period between approval of an application and acquisition of Australian citizenship.

Australian citizenship residency requirements:

Once the legislation has been amended an applicant for Australian citizenship will be required to be present in Australia as a permanent resident for a total of 3 years in the 5 years before making the Australian citizenship application. This includes a period of 1 year in the 2 years before the Australian citizenship application is made.

Security

A new provision will prohibit the approval of an Australian citizenship application if that person is identified as a risk to Australia's security.

The prohibition will apply to all applications including applications for Australian citizenship by descent, Australian citizenship by conferral and applications for the resumption of Australian citizenship.

Revocation

The revocation provisions within Australian citizenship legislation will be extended.

Under current legislation a person can have their Australian citizenship revoked if they committed a serious offence prior to being approved to become a citizen, and are convicted for 12 months or more for that offence after lodging the Australian citizenship application.

Going forward this provision will be extended to enable revocation for a serious crime committed at any time, up until the person becomes an Australian citizen by making the pledge of commitment, provided that they are convicted for 12 months or more for that offence.

Please contact Global Visas to find out more about migration to Australia.