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3 JUL 2018 - 4:32PM

Citizenship delays due to national security,bureaucratic stuff ups: Minister

(SBS)Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Alan Tudge has conceded that "bureaucraticstuff ups" are delaying some citizenship applications amid a mounting backlog.LanguageEnglish

ByManpreet K Singh [ /yourlanguage/author/manpreet-k-singh-0 ] , Shamsher Kainth [ /yourlanguage/punjabi/author/shamsher-kainth ] 28 Jun 2018 - 2:08 PM UPDATED 3 Jul 2018 - 4:32 PM

Mrs Lai is one of over 200,000 migrants in Australia whose citizenship applications are currently before the Department of HomeAffairs.

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7/16/2018 Citizenship delays due to national security, bureaucratic stuff ups: Minister | SBS Your Language

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John Lai and his two daughters were British citizens and Mrs Lai is a Hong Kong national. While he has already received hisAustralian citizenship, along with the couple's daughters, after delinking their applications from Mrs Lai’s, she is still awaiting anoutcome.

The Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, Alan Tudge says the delays are due to the increasing number of citizenshipapplications.

“We have been having 190,000 people each year become permanent residents growing each year. And typically a year or so afterthat they apply for citizenship. And they are at high historic number presently,” Mr Tudge told SBS Punjabi.

According to the Department’s universal processing times, 75 per cent of citizenship applications are processed within 14 months and90 per cent of applicants are receiving an outcome within 16 months of making an application.

But Mr Tudge attributes the longer wait to national security concerns.

“There’s a higher national security threshold these days, (and) people do understand that we do have to be very careful aboutensuring that we are doing the national security checks so that we can keep the Australian public safe,” Mr Tudge said.

“For most people that may be a couple of months more wait than they would have to a couple of years ago but it’s a pretty significantprize in terms of the Australian citizenship. I hope people will be patient with this acknowledging there is huge demand for both visaand citizenship at the moment.”

7/16/2018 Citizenship delays due to national security, bureaucratic stuff ups: Minister | SBS Your Language

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Although Mr Lai wouldn't hazard a guess on why the processing time for his family's applications have been so varied, he says: "It isinteresting that even though we applied on the same day last year and passed the citizenship test with 3 days of each other, myapplication was approved within four months and we're awaiting an outcome for my wife even after 16 months. The only difference inour applications was our nationality."

'Bureaucratic stuff ups'

While Mr Tudge said migrants from a country with a “higher national security risk profile” may have to wait longer, he conceded that“bureaucratic stuff ups” were also delaying citizenship applications.

"That happens in a huge department- we've got 9 million visa applications each and every year.

"If in that instance [Mrs Lai], if they are from Hong Kong and they think there's an unreasonable delay they could go to their localmember of Federal Parliament because if there's a bureaucratic stuff up there, we could fix that actually."

According to Department of Home Affairs data, 54,419 citizenship applications were approved during the first eight months of 2017-18, while 141,236 migrants applied for Australian citizenship during this period.

In comparison, 139,285 citizenship applications were approved during 2016-17.

The relatively low number of citizenship grants so far this year is attributed to the period of April-October 2017 when the Departmentheld on to new applications after announcing the citizenship reforms that sought to increase the general residence requirement andintroduce a standalone English language test - something that the government is now reconsidering.

Mr Tudge told SBS Punjabi that while the government hasn’t yet decided, it was considering a conversational, primary school levelEnglish test for migrants wanting to be Australian citizens. He said consultations were also underway about the general residencerequirement that the government had earlier proposed to increase to four years from the current one year period.

Follow SBS Punjabi on Facebook [ https://www.facebook.com/SBSPunjabi/ ] and Twitter [https://www.twitter.com/SBSPunjabi ] .

Also read[ /yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/06/27/citizenship-changes-government-may-introduce-conversational-english-test-instead?cid=inbody:citizenship-delays-due-to-national-security-bureaucratic-stuff-ups-minister ]

Citizenship changes: Government may introduce ‘conversational English’ test instead of IELTSMinister for Citizenship Alan Tudge has said the government is still consulting about an English test and the waiting period forpermanent residents before they can apply for citizenship.[ /yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/06/27/are-citizenship-delays-linked-your-nationality?cid=inbody:citizenship-delays-due-to-national-security-bureaucratic-stuff-ups-minister ]

7/16/2018 Citizenship delays due to national security, bureaucratic stuff ups: Minister | SBS Your Language

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Are citizenship delays linked to your nationality?Following a series of articles published by SBS Punjabi about the long delay applicants have faced this financial year, while waiting forapproval for their Australian citizenship, we were contacted by Melbourne-based John Lai about his personal experience.[ /yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/06/19/australian-citizenship-approvals-have-been-dramatically-reduced?cid=inbody:citizenship-delays-due-to-national-security-bureaucratic-stuff-ups-minister ]

Australian citizenship approvals have been dramatically reducedDuring the first eight months of this year, 54,419 citizenship applications were approved compared to 139,285 in the year 2016-17.[ /yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/06/14/skilled-visa-squeeze-set-dip-migration-intake-lowest-eight-years?cid=inbody:citizenship-delays-due-to-national-security-bureaucratic-stuff-ups-minister ]

Skilled visa squeeze set to dip migration intake to lowest in eight yearsAccording to reports, Australia's migration intake could fall by up to 25,000 due to a reduction in skilled and sponsored visas, withconcern also mounting of a 'quiet cut' to immigration.[ /yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2018/05/25/queues-migration-and-citizenship-get-longer-and-longer?cid=inbody:citizenship-delays-due-to-national-security-bureaucratic-stuff-ups-minister ]

Queues for migration and citizenship get longer and longerAs of April 30 this year, there were over 200,000 citizenship applications being processed by the Department of Home Affairs, andperhaps a comparable number of permanent residency applications.

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