Canberra, 28 June: The Morrison Government continues to focus on Australian citizenship processing and creating a common bond between communities through Australian citizenship.
Between 1 July 2018 and 31 May 2019, more than 132,000 citizenship by conferral applications have been approved, up from 70,000 in the same period last year.
This represents an increase of 88 per cent.
Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs David Coleman said these outcomes are the result of a range of reforms designed to streamline the application process, without compromising national security or program integrity.
These measures include establishment of task forces within the Department of Home Affairs to focus on complex citizenship cases, system enhancements to automate processes, and a $9 million investment in the recruitment and training of extra staff to ensure applications are dealt with as efficiently as possible.
“As a result of these measures, the number of citizenship by conferral applications on-hand has decreased to about 222,800, down from almost 250,000 last year. This number is expected to continue to decline,” Mr Coleman said.
“We live in a country that many people want to be a part of, and the Government has invested heavily to meet this demand while also protecting the security and integrity of the system to ensure only legitimate applications are approved,” Mr Coleman said.
Australian citizenship is a privilege and is granted to those who support Australian values, respect Australian laws and want to contribute to an even better Australia.
“As part of this drive to make people commit themselves to Australian values, governments of all persuations should also focus on the real character of people over a period of time before granting this huge privilege”, said Robert (pseudo name) who is Pauline Hanson supporter and does not want to hide that fact.
But there are those who believe, once the people are here, there is no real benefit in making the grant of citizenship harder for them.
“They are here already and have got their PR. What is the point making citizenship difficuylt for them?”asks Harbir Kharbanda.
But with the figures above, things seem to be working.