samlab

On 27/03/2022 at 14:22, Amit Gupta said:

Hi @Andyt0904, first of all, congratulations to get yours ceremony date. 

My application was approved in 2021 April, and it's been almost 12 months, so I called Immigration and asked them. The day before yesterday, one of the officer from the department called me and apologised for the delay and give me same date as your however, he didn't tell me at what time and where about. He said to me that you would receive a letter from the council. 

Would you be able to tell me what time is the ceremony and where about so I can ask for time off from my employer? 

Kind regards

Amit

Congratulations Maybe check your junk email. The email will come from Sunshine Coast Council

18 hours ago, sub7er said:

Hi, Does anyone know what the Covid 19 vaccination policy is for Brisbane city councils citizenship ceremony? I am currently unvaccinated. Look forward to hearing from other members of this forum. thanks

 

 

We’re on the Sunshine Coast Qld and they stated the following on our invite …

Covid-19

You will not be required to show proof of vaccination to attend this event. The event will have physical distancing in place. you will not be required to wear a mask for the duration of the ceremony unless social distancing of 1.5m is not possible.

19 minutes ago, Marty said:

@samlabYay, congratulations! Me too!

@Marty Congratulations to you too  

At last We got our invite for 8th March Ceremony just a bit excited

I got a reply from the Citizenship Delivery Program department. Here’s mainly what they wrote …

 I wish to acknowledge your concerns resulting from the delay in progressing your application ceremony allocation.

 Once approved applicants are required to attend a Citizenship Ceremony with 12 months of approval. Noting that your citizenship application was approved  on 27 March 2021, it is expected that you will receive an invitation to a future ceremony within that 12 month timeframe.  
When you are allocated to a future citizenship ceremony, you will receive an invitation approximately two to four weeks prior to the scheduled date. Thank you for confirming that your contact details are up-to-date as this will ensure your future ceremony invitation is sent to the correct address.

Citizenship ceremonies have been impacted by COVID-19 related lockdowns, with some ceremonies have been cancelled and re-scheduled to a later date. In addition to this, the number of conferees permitted to attend each ceremony has been limited to comply with relevant social distancing guidelines. 

 Due to the large volume of applications proceeding to ceremony the Department is working closely with local councils to reduce wait times wherever possible

18 minutes ago, Yameen said:

Website of Home affairs says 25 months from application to ceremony. 

We’re on month 26 now. Sunshine Coast Qld & still no invite.

Prescriptions- I’ve found the cheapest to be the larger chains like chemist warehouse. They buy larger quantities and can sell cheaper.

Went to a local pharmacy recently as it was more convenient and ended up paying $85 instead of the usual $50 

Reply from SCC …

We have a confirmed date of March 8 for the next citizenship ceremony, which will host around 500 recipients.

We are still working on confirming our next dates, but there will be another large ceremony in May, and then we will move forward with our regular ceremonies (approx. 70 per ceremony) from June onwards.

Depending on when you were approved from Home Affairs you may be invited to either the March or May ceremony, however please note because of a backlog we are experiencing delays and those who were approved in 2021 are sitting a little closer to a 10-11 month wait time. This will go down after we do the two large ceremonies, however we don’t have access to the current wait list so we aren’t able to guarantee any firm times.  

2 minutes ago, Marty said:

 

Actually - next confirmed dates are February 9th 2022 and March 8th 2022 but they can't say how many people are invited, just that they're restricting guests due to Covid.

Fingers crossed for March or have we given up crossing fingers yet?  

@Marty Result! Brilliant Thanks. Well done on finding that out. Yeah they’ve got to invite us to the March one surely. 

I got a reply from the Citizenship Delivery Program department today. Here mainly what they wrote …

 I wish to acknowledge your concerns resulting from the delay in progressing your application ceremony allocation.

 Once approved applicants are required to attend a Citizenship Ceremony with 12 months of approval. Noting that your citizenship application was approved  on 27 March 2021, it is expected that you will receive an invitation to a future ceremony within that 12 month timeframe.  
When you are allocated to a future citizenship ceremony, you will receive an invitation approximately two to four weeks prior to the scheduled date. Thank you for confirming that your contact details are up-to-date as this will ensure your future ceremony invitation is sent to the correct address.

Citizenship ceremonies have been impacted by COVID-19 related lockdowns, with some ceremonies have been cancelled and re-scheduled to a later date. In addition to this, the number of conferees permitted to attend each ceremony has been limited to comply with relevant social distancing guidelines. 

 Due to the large volume of applications proceeding to ceremony the Department is working closely with local councils to reduce wait times wherever possible

Noosa have their future citizenship  ceremony dates on their website so I have contacted Sunshine Coast Council to ask for dates of Citizenship Ceremonies for 2022 & how many people will be invited to each ceremony.

I will post their response once/ if I get  it. 
 

2 hours ago, MLB_Applicant said:

The average time for Victorian around 18 months to 24 months and ONLY 6 months for rest of the AUSTRALIA........

Sunshine Coast is longer than that. We applied 25 months ago. Approved 10 months ago and still waiting for a ceremony invite. 

4 hours ago, annagilda said:

I got my ceremony invitation yesterday! Woohooh! 26th of January.

lodged mid August 2021, test and approval 15th November 2021, ceremony scheduled for the 26th. Good luck everyone! Its coming. 

Congratulations that’s great.
Please could you share your location? 

1 hour ago, rammygirl said:

They are lovely but don’t tell everyone. Sea is a tad chilly down here though!

Whoops, yep its awful there  

Very jealous 

33 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Lucky those aren't the only two choices in Australia then!

Yep! If it was up to me we’d move back to the beautiful beaches near Adelaide 

Weathers been rubbish here on the Sunny for weeks now but to be fair it’s not normally.

On 12/12/2021 at 08:40, Cobs_Ahoy said:

have the Sunshine Coast in mind because I liked the sound of the the sun-tropical climate, national parks, beaches and the fact that it seemed less developed/more laid back than other bits of the coast

The Sunshine Coast is experiencing massive development. Houses prices going through the roof. Rentals extremely hard to get with a lot of people homeless or living in caravan  parks if they are lucky. https://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Experience-Sunshine-Coast/Statistics-and-Maps/Population-Growth
Most of Australia want to move here at the moment. It is beautiful but not the quiet laid back place it was even 3 years ago. 
Yes we have bull sharks ( never seen one yet) sharks, huntsmen spiders and snakes ( watch Sunshine Coast snake catcher on YouTube to get an idea) but you just learn to live with them. Im more scared of the fast moving geckos and getting mosquito bites. 
Personally I’d prefer here to Melbourne. 

Anyone on the Sunshine Coast Qld received an invite to the Australia Day Ceremony?

What date did you get your application approved?

We applied Dec 2019 didn’t get a test until Feb 21 approved March 21 and still waiting on a ceremony invite. 

It’s been 9 months of waiting so I called them. The phone call took 54 minutes  from start to finish! After the initial 35 min wait and then answering the qualifying questions,  I got passed to a “specialist” for another wait but eventually I managed to speak to someone.

Here’s basically what I was told …

It’s  just a matter of carrying on waiting. They couldn’t tell me how much longer.

We are still in a pandemic so wait times are longer

If it takes longer than 12 months, not to worry. It wouldn’t be my fault and each case will be judged individually. It’s not my fault if I do not get an invite before 12 months.

I asked if we had missed out on the Australia Day ceremony and was told “There is still time to receive an invite, invites are sent out approx 4 weeks prior to ceremony” 

Not worth an hour of my time really
 

On 03/12/2021 at 13:43, Andyt0904 said:

Anyone have any further updates? 

Nothing yet. 

Wait times now changed to 7 - 9 months of approval on government website. 
 

If you apply to take the test in Brisbane instead of the Sunny Coast the wait time is approx 6-8 weeks from date of application.

We applied to take it on the Sunshine Coast and waited 14 months. 

Brisbane have dedicated offices for the test. Sunshine Coast gets fitted in at CentreLink offices. 

@Marty Any update? How long have you been waiting? 

https://henzells.com.au/more/profile-on/darren-lewington,189
We bought in Little Mountain Qld 4551 this year. Highly recommend Darren Lewington.

Genuine down to earth guy. 
 

We’re on the Sunny Coast & still waiting for our ceremony it’s been 7 months. 

Test taken in February and approval in March. 

 

Application - Sunshine Coast - From date of application to taking the test 14 months. To pass you need to get over 75% and all 5 of the Australian values correct. 

My advise is ...get the book and revise. I’d heard lots of people saying they took the test and got 100% so thought I wouldn’t need to revise and it would just be common sense. I also did the online practice test a few times and got 100% each time so thought I’d be fine. 
But there were lots of questions about government & politics that I really wasn’t expecting. I also got over confident and rushed through it without going back and checking my answers. I failed the first time! Second time I passed  but only got 85%. Luckily you can take it up-to 3 times before they ask you to go away and do some more revision. 

 

On 07/12/2020 at 05:49, samlab said:

Anyone on the Sunshine Coast received an invite lately? 
We’ve been waiting 12 month since applying. 

 @GUS Any progress with your application mate?