Citizenship Act 2007 - 12 months in total in the 4 years - how to count?

[jdog]

Hi Poms,

 

Wondering if you can help me, I'm close to citizenship, the one challenge I have is that I've travelled out of the country a number of times and am close the "absences from Australia of no more than 12 months in total in the 4 years". My question is does anyone know how this is counted?

 

For example if I took a weekend in New Zealand, leaving on the 1st (lets say for argument 8am flight) and returning on 3rd (lets say 8pm flight), would I have been absent from Australia for 3 days - i.e. I was in a foreign country all three days or I was in Australia on the 1st and the 3rd and therefore I was absent for 1 day.

 

My girlfriend is really mad as looks like I need to cancel a holiday to the US because of the above, any help clarifying is anyone knows would help a lot. I searched the forum but couldn't find anything.

 

Cheers,

 

Jason

 

Australian Citizenship Act 2007 Residence Requirements

To satisfy the residence requirements you must have:

 

 

• 4 years lawful residence in Australia. This period must include 12 months as a permanent resident immediately before making an application for Australian citizenship
  
• and
  
• absences from Australia of no more than 12 months in total in the 4 years prior to application, including not more than 90 days in the 12 months immediately prior to application.
  

 

Lawful residence means residence in Australia on a temporary or permanent visa.

If any of the following applied to you in the past 4 years, please telephone the Citizenship Information Line on 131 880 during business hours to discuss your circumstances.

 

 

• You obtained an e-visa to replace an expired Resident Return Visa (RRV)
  
• You obtained a bridging visa of any type
  
• You lodged an onshore application for a permanent visa then travelled overseas on your temporary visa
  

 

You are a New Zealand citizen on a Special Category Visa (SCV)

[AJ]

There is a citizenship wizard you can put the dates you went in and out of the country and it works the date out for your, or phone the DIPB with your passport number and they can tell you. I have been out and in but was eligible in May, then unfortunately I had to leave for 2 weeks in April and they added time on so now cant do it till December. Not worth cancelling a holiday if its already booked, just wait a bit longer for citizenship.

[Parley]

It is a good question.

Based on your example it is true that you were in Australia on Day 1 and Day 3.

 

However because it is termed absenses from Australia, it is also true you were outside Australia on all 3 days too.

 

I think you could legally argue you were only absent 1 day (in your example), as you were in Australia for part of those other 2 days.