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AUSTRALIAN CITIZENSHIP TIMELINES 2018-2019


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7 hours ago, Eddie0719 said:

OMG Perth is really slow....

I think we will fully wait for 14 mths to get certificate of citizenship.  Current situation is so unexpected and unfair. Someone applied during Oct to Dec 2017, got approval letter soon, but we April guys still waiting 4 that piece of paper.

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I have just applied for my Citizenship and need to go back to the uk. Am I still eligible to get my citizenship? I have no issues with coming back to do my test and ceremony etc . Eventually I would like to retire here , hence the reason I would like my citizenship. Thank you in advance for any replies .

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4 hours ago, Eddie0719 said:

Do you guys believe there would be any progress after the national day this year? Cheers

I think so. But 'up to 14 mths' includes ceremony completion, then we all must get the citizenship certificate by the end of June. If we can get approval letter by this month, then still need to wait up to 5 mths to get final certificate.

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18 hours ago, Sheila said:

75% are in 11 months. we already completed 8.75 months. 3-5 month is ceremony time. We should get approvals  by end of Jan or Feb ? @Elliot Tsao

Hi Sheila,

My experience suggests the situation may not be optimistic. Even 14 months is the time taken from lodgment to ceremony but they do not care. They tell you're eligible to complain and call again after 14 months expires; in fact till then they have already had you case delayed for at least 3 months (coz approval to ceremony takes at least 3 months as per the current time lines). To be even worse and ashamed, as what I guess, they always leave a back door to themselves, that is, 14 months is the time taken to processed 90% applications. 

Today, I called again I was told as such words plus they do a lot of checks. S**t words, Ombudsman reported whatever checks do not take 6-7 months and AISO also confirmed the external checks take at most 3-4 months. What's unacceptable is that they lied your application is being processed but in fact it is not processed (suspended). 

Next week, I will complain again to the Global Feedback Unit with a very formal complaint letter, if by the end not approved, decide to escalate legal action. 

 

 

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We are also getting increasingly frustrated and angry at the whole thing. My partners application submitted nearly 12 months ago now, test done and passed in June. Not a peep since. It's the inconsistency, lack of transparency and unfairness of the whole thing that is most unsettling. 

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24 minutes ago, londonluci said:

We are also getting increasingly frustrated and angry at the whole thing. My partners application submitted nearly 12 months ago now, test done and passed in June. Not a peep since. It's the inconsistency, lack of transparency and unfairness of the whole thing that is most unsettling. 

Hi londonluci, I can feel your pain as we are in the same boat. I do encourage these who are subjected to serious delays (i.e. in fact it should be 12 months instead of 14 months after submission and 7 months after test) to take strong actions against them. If everybody do nothing but wait silly, they will be acting as they want and think you do not mind or you can tolerate the serious delays no matter how long it is. This will be a disaster i am sure, coz once the time breaks the threshold (14 months), they will say so sorry we have not set the upper limit of time that an application to be finalized. This is also shown in Ombudsman report that some applications even have been for 5 years, ridiculous. Another reason why delayed applicants need acting now is that god knows when they will change this time frame again to 2 years or even longer.  It's hard to say for these crazy persons. 

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Hi @Juncobalt,

Thanks for your update.

I am not quite familiar with legal stuff so I called a local lawyer discussing my situation. However I was told by a kind lady lawyer that we or they could do nothing but wait at this stage. She also explained to me that due to backlog of applications from April onwards and short staffing from the DIBP the processing time becomes unpredictable and  has been beyond everyone's control.

I noticed that you are about to take some legal action, so can you please let me know what you could do to make a noise?

Ps: Applied 29 March 2017 - Exam 29 June 2017 - Nothing since then.

Thanks and regards,

Eddie  

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I really don't think the point of blame should be with the DIBC, I think you need to complain to the local federal MP, these are the people cutting 300+ staff, these are the ones who change the laws .... the work load has increased 10 fold, and there are constant applications being put in ... maybe request a FOI request asking how many applications to how many officers etc ... a lot of the delays were held up by federal government .. of course it's not acceptable, but the department can't be blamed for governemente legislation. 

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We got our citizenship a number of years ago and from test to ceremony it took 5 months.  We were informed that the time to do all the checks was unpredictable and once notified it was then up to individual shires.  Our shire e.g. holds ceremonies once a month but for only about 70 people

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1 hour ago, Eddie0719 said:

Hi @Juncobalt,

Thanks for your update.

I am not quite familiar with legal stuff so I called a local lawyer discussing my situation. However I was told by a kind lady lawyer that we or they could do nothing but wait at this stage. She also explained to me that due to backlog of applications from April onwards and short staffing from the DIBP the processing time becomes unpredictable and  has been beyond everyone's control.

I noticed that you are about to take some legal action, so can you please let me know what you could do to make a noise?

Ps: Applied 29 March 2017 - Exam 29 June 2017 - Nothing since then.

Thanks and regards,

Eddie  

That’s a common excuse of the department but it only works for the submissions after April 2017. If you have a good think you will agree with me. If they adhere to the time sequence of submission, the backlogs should be nothing to do with us whose applications are in the very first places of the queue. As we have seen on this forum, quite a few applications submitted recently and/or much later got approved on the same day or in a couple of days after test. This proves backlogs slowing down the processing to be a lie.

Additionally, in fact there are nearly equivalent total applications in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 years as to 2016-2017 but there were never widespread delays occurred to the applicants. If carefully read Ombudsman report, it’s easy to find the true reason causing the widespread serious delays is their so called enhanced integrity and identity checks. Once again to be emphasized, the appalling delays in our applications are NOT caused due to checks themselves taking a lot of time, but due to the deactivation of applications (suspended), which is very clear in the report. 

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From the below spreadsheet,

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JYRvi6XH4LKUvdCW5vmCG44U7VG469oZNQeKgceVDO4/edit#gid=0

I can see that people who have applied after me have already got the test date but I haven't got. And yes, they are from the same local council as me. Is this normal? I always thought applications were processed is the same order as they were received. 

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34 minutes ago, fwmonger said:

From the below spreadsheet,

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JYRvi6XH4LKUvdCW5vmCG44U7VG469oZNQeKgceVDO4/edit#gid=0

I can see that people who have applied after me have already got the test date but I haven't got. And yes, they are from the same local council as me. Is this normal? I always thought applications were processed is the same order as they were received. 

Just found that I have got the test email a few days ago. I had totally missed it. Searching for 'DIBP' in my gmail doesn't show it because the name is now changed to 'Department of Home Affairs'. Phew!

Edited by fwmonger
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4 hours ago, Keep me in oz said:

 

has anyone in perth heard about their test? It seems to be taking a really long time for them to be processed in the Perth Office?

 

Nothing is moving in Perth. I applied in June but still no test date. The whole process is a joke

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It appears we're finally over the last hurdle now. I'll summarise below in case it's useful / of interest to anyone. 

  • Applied for citizenship (family of four, online, Sydney, NSW) - 21st April 2017
  • Interview and tests for all four of us - 20th-27 Nov 2017
  • Children approved - First week of Dec 2017
  • Had to apply, wait for and send off new UK police checks due to time spent back in the UK after activation of first visas.
  • Final approval received - 16th January 2018

Now its the wait for the council to announce the next citizenship ceremony. Busy year ahead for various reasons and trips out of the country so fingers crossed we get one soon and have enough time to get passports immediately after for, as most of you are probably aware, they cancel your existing visas on the day of your ceremony. I kind of wish they had a grace period until you got your new passport (we can perform an emergency application if really needed) especially seeing as we had to pay $1500 for resident return visas which aren't even a year old, ho hum.

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