You may find it more productive to ask a question on a new thread rather than take-over an unrelated thread that has already gone to several pages.

Okay. I stand corrected.

Though I disagree that my post is unrelated to this thread as my point may well prove to be an additional consideration for the OP, I have done as you have politely suggested.

What about if you carried your citizenship certificate with you?

Obviously the Aus government should show more consideration for those that are hoping to 'stick it out' just for a passport.

Simple - your British passport no longer has a valid Australian visa! once Australian citizenship is granted your previously valid PR visa is expired. If you then try to enter the country using your British passport the immigration officer will scan your passport and the system will tell him you dont have a visa. You'll then get a lovely interview in the backroom whilst you explain that you couldnt be bothered to pay for your Australian passport and thought the British one would do.. If you get lucky you might even get a guest spot on Ch 7's "Border Security"

Good luck with your airline check-in experience ....

I really can't see what problem some people have with this. If you want to be an Australian citizen, you abide by the rules for Australian citizens. If that means you have to have an Australian passport, then that's the way it has to be.

But that's exactly the point I'm making. I haven't found any literature which says that you "have to have an Australian passport" as a citizen. The only thing I've found is that it is the preferred method of travel documentation.

Why would I want to spend nearly a thousand dollars for passports for the whole family for those few times that I travel if I don't have to?

How much is a passport? Jeez, a thousand dollars on top of the cost of applying for citizenship?

$200 per adult $100 per child. OK, not $1000! But it would be if I had 6 kids!!!

Yes - but you won't be able to *after* the procedure <g>.

But, as several have pointed out, you won't find an airline that will actually bring you as far as the immigration desk!

(Airlines are fined for allowing passengers to present without valid visas or other valid documentation to enter countries - and it's not peanuts either. £2000 each comes to mind. It's incredibly unfair - forged passports and visas can convince even forensic immigration people, so how on earth a check-in girl can be expected to decide in a few seconds whether a South African or Chilean or Australian pasport is good is beyond me!)

I know that but my earlier point was that if you presented your citiz. cert at check-in would this be allowable?

Whether it's "allowable" or not is in practice irrelevant. Could *you* tell in a few seconds that a -say Argentinian - certificate hadn't been drawn up that afternoon on a word processor? I certainly couldn't - and airlines are not in the business of betting £2k to nowt on hunches at check-in!

It cost me $800 for Aussie passports last year when I went back to the UK. Fortunately I didn't have to buy any British ones. The passports had run out but you don't need them. I hope the UK doesn't change the rules as buying Brit passports in Aus is expensive.

It was actually slightly less than $800. For some reason they gave back $15 per adult passport and $7 per child one. Not sure why?