I came out here in 1963, I was 2yrs old, we came on a "travel document" as my parents didn't even have passports back then, it just had my parents names as mother & father, & the names of us 4 kids as travelling with them & that was basically it!
I've worked & paid taxes since I was 15yrs old, I have purchased many homes & paid stamp duty & rates, I've voted since I was 18yrs old, I have been married & had my children here, have worked in a few government jobs, & have been called upon for jury duty.
I actually looked into this subject about 10yrs ago on the department of immigration website, I went from one link to the other until I found a page that stated people who came to Australia in the early 1960s were classed as Australian Citizens from the day they sailed!!
I tried to find this information again recently to prove I was an Aussie citizen but that website has no information, links or anything regarding this subject now!! It's just disappeared?!
Whenever I ring Immigration to ask I get a young & rude person who quotes from the new website! And I was told that it doesn't mean a thing if I've been here for 58yrs, immigration only looks at my last visa for residency status! which is bullshit because we have to get those every 5yrs anyway!!
Both my parents have passed away & they had all the important documents in their possession as they never trusted us with them, so now they're gone, I have no birth certificate or the travel document we came to Australia on, so I have to renew my British passport every 10yrs as a form of official identification as it's all I have now!
I met a lady who works for centrelink who was a £10 pome too & she said she didn't have any problems getting an Australian Passport as a PR, she just applied for it & got it!!
So where you should be ok with the government job even as a PR, I've worked for 4 government agencies in the past with only PR status!
But as far as proving we are Aussie citizens & getting an Australian passport, we're screwed because they keep changing the rules & everytime the do, the department of Immigration removes all content containing any information that supports us!!
What a crock hey??
