Swerv-o

I only know because that's what Geordie George and her husband did...


S

moneypenny20

Don't know then. Maybe they got special treatment because they were special

Pollyana

Same here - which is one reason why at the moment I just ain't interested.

JAJ

There are policy guidelines:
http://www.citizenship.gov.au/law-and-policy/policy.htm (chapter 6)

Frequency of ceremonies
It is desirable that citizenship ceremonies be held so that prospective citizens need wait no longer than 12 weeks after being notified that their application has been approved. The cooperation of local government authorities should be sought in order to avoid undue delays in conferees making a pledge ...

Routine department ceremonies
Routine department ceremonies are generally held for people who are not required to make the pledge in English, or would find it difficult to participate in a local government ceremony. For example, because they are aged or unable to travel. Routine department ceremonies are also held when councils are unable or unwilling to schedule sufficient ceremonies to accommodate the number of approved citizenship applicants in their area.


If you have a right under policy to a Department ceremony (eg if your council is not doing its job to have enough ceremonies) and the "helpline says no" you should escalate it by making a formal complaint and insist that they follow their own policies.

The Minister for Citizenship may well be interested to find out if individual DIAC offices aren't doing their job in this respect.

SunshineGirl

Interesting that. We were approved on 9 Oct and had our ceremony on 4 Feb so around 16 weeks. I hadn't realised we could try and do it earlier but then it's academic now.

scallyuk

I failed on one of the mandatory questions
the one about who can stand for parliament - I missed the bit about renouncing dual citizenship ,but because the test allows 45 mins and I finished my first go in less than 5 I was given a cram sheet and allowed an immediate resit which I passed with full marks.

Also don't have to get UK police clearance because I entered Aus within 3 months of the original migration one being completed. The citizenship peeps seem to have a lot of leeway when it comes to applying the rules.

pstanton

Hi is there any special allowance for people with dyslexia in the citizenship test. Thanks

Rogue Trader

G'day all you helpful and knowledgeable peeps...

Do any of you know how long before eligibility you are allowed to take the test? i.e. is a passed test only valid for a year?

For info: we will have been here for 4 years on 15 Feb 2010 (we will also have held PR for over a year by then) so if the tests are good for 12 months we thought we may as well get them done now so we're one more step closer.

Cheers y'all.

Catchya,
RT

JAJ

No time limit (as long as the rules don't change).

Rogue Trader

Goodonya JAJ, you're a champion!

SNH

As I do not need to take it, I cannot be sure. But I thought that when Kevin Rudd came into office he scrapped John Howard's ridiculous sports 'heroes' questions.

Not everybody in Australia worships cricket players, and Kevin Rudd realised the test the way it was was utterly ridiculous. A migrant does NOT need to know all about football to be an Australian. I certainly don't know the first thing about it.

It saddens me to see the Liberal Party believes you cannot be an Australian unless you know about sport and nothing else. Stupid morons.

sme

So did I twice on the very same question as you both times!!!!! So I took 60 questions and got 58 correct


Did my test yesterday - all very easy apart from me screwing up the mandatory one.

bcworld

Well I sat the test 5 months ago and got questions about the Melbourne Cup and Phar Lap....I'm not sure I'd class the Melbourne Cup as purely a sporting question but being expected to know about Phar Lap certainly is.

GSNR

Hey everyone,

There are heaps of dates in the book to remember, did anyone have alot of date questions in their test?

Cheers
Shelley

comet555

I just sat the test today... really nothing to get freaked out about (not that it stopped me!).

Passed with 100% in 3 and a half minutes! I wasn't trying to do it that quickly, it's just that most of the questions were common sense or were very obvious given the other choices given. So it really wasn't too bad.

I had the same breakdown of questions per topic as mentioned in the first post so I'm pretty sure that's standard. I was told the first 3 questions were the ones that you have to get right, the rights and responsibilities. So it helps to know which ones you really need to focus on. I was mostly worried about getting a lot of dates, but there was only a couple questions with numbers and only one on dates.


Here are the questions that I remember (in no particular order). I can't quite remember all of them:

1. When travelling abroad what do Australian citizens have the right to? (Consular Assistance)
2. Question about voting (compulsory to vote)
3. Question on how men and women are regarded. (equality under law)
4. How long have indigenous Australians been here? (40,000-60,000 years)
5. What percentage of Australian people were born overseas? (22 percent)
6. What is the first line of the National Anthem? (Australians all let us rejoice).
7. What is Australia's national flower? (The Wattle)
8. What were Henry Lawson and AB (Banjo) Paterson known for? (writing verse and stories about ordinary people). The name Banjo in brackets was a giveaway that it had something to do with music or petry or something.
9. Who is the Queen's representative in Australia (The governor-general)
10. A political party is a group of people who...? (group of people who share similar ideas and philosophies about how a country should be managed).
11. Question about what makes up the commonwealth parliament. (House of Representative and the Senate).
12. How is voting done? (by secret ballot)
13. When was the White Australia immigration policy changed? (The 60's).

I hope that helps anyone who's about to take the test. I read over the book the day or two before the test, plus the 7 page cheat/summary sheets that I found somewhere on BE. On the train into the city I spent about 30 minutes reading through the cheat sheets and having a quick look through the book. So I probably only spent a couple hours in total reading everything over.

Also as a side note to anyone writing the test in Brisbane. I arrived very early and though I would go through the lineups and read. I discovered that you can go straight up to the 3rd floor and there's no need to take a number. This is just for writing the test though, if you're applying for citizenship then you need to get a number first.

When I got to the 3rd floor I just walked right up to the desk, there were only about 2-3 desks with people and only one other person being served, so no wait at all. The guy scanned my documents and then I got to go right in to take the test. I probably went in about 20 minutes before my appointment and the computer room was fairly empty. So if you're like me and arrive early just go right up there and you can probably do the test right away.

I suspect part of the reason they have such a wait time to get spots is because they book people in for a 45 minute block. If most people finish in even 5-10 minutes then the room is fairly empty and you can pretty much walk in to right in.

Now, the application itself is next on my list. Can't apply until June 1st though so I have time to wait for that. I'm planning on bringing all the documents and applying in person with my husband hoping it'll get approved faster.